isaiah on New Creation

The Lord says, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; For b...

preaching commentary Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-ta...

Preaching Commentary A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the o...

Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-table expression being “p...

Jesus’s resurrection opened a door between the fallen, groaning world into which he was born and the renewal of all things. That door was a stone rolled back by the very finger of God from the mouth o...

A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the opening chapter introduc...

Leader: Scripture teaches us that there is one good and holy God; that we were created in God’s image, to commit ourselves to Him, to do good works, to reflect His glory, and to know Him as loving Fat...

Hope remains possible even amid our failures—whether we disappoint God, let down our families, or fall short of our own expectations—because divine compassion operates like an inexhaustible well. Each...

This is the paschal feast, the Lord’s passing from death to life: so cries the Spirit. …You have protected us, Jesus, from endless disaster. You spread your hands like a mother and, mothe...

Julian of Norwich was a fourteenth-century mystic-theologian who maybe understood the belovedness of creation and new creation better than anyone. In the fifth chapter of her book Revelations of Divin...

jobs concluding, stages finishing, grieving over, grudges over, blaming over, excuses over. O God, grant me your sense of timing. In this season of ...

You know all about us–our weakness, our failing, our sin; and you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for whom it was hard to get ou...

The St. Francis Satyr is a tiny butterfly on the endangered species list. This butterfly only lives on the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina. Before heavy conservation efforts took place, the...

According to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk tribe in Northern California and a forest manager, Fire is that which renews life. A lot of people have been conditioned to look at it as a threat and...

At the very beginning of creation, the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great...

I've often found it a bit difficult to preach on the subject of the New Year. Yes, of course there are themes of newness of life and the new creation, and these seem appropriate connection points ...

Pastor: Having been sent through our Baptism by the risen Christ to proclaim good news to the world, let us pray for the whole Church and for all people. Almighty God the Father, through Your onl...

To make suggests making something out of something else the way a carpenter makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggests making something out of nothing the way an artist makes paintings or poem...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens “ What’s the historical context?” Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled A contemporary commentator ends each daily program with these words, “Let not your hearts be trou...

Pastor: Father God, we live in a world where good news is rare. Help us always to remember the Good News of Your Son, who by His life, death, and resurrection brought into the world the hope of a ne...

Pastor: God’s Word is indeed a lamp; in its inspired voice, we hear useful teaching, rebuke, correction, instruction, and training for a life of following Jesus.  As we prepare to worship this day, ...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Light in the Darkness Light is good. When God created the heavens and the earth, we are first told that “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was ...

Preaching Commentary Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Light in the Darkness Light is good. When God created the heavens and the earth, we are first told that “God said, ‘Let there be l...

“God is doing a new thing.” —Isaiah 43 I have heard this scripture passage quoted multiple times in the last three years and it still stirs something within me. Do you feel it too? God is doing ...

The Hebrew cosmology represents a revolutionary break with the contemporary world, a parting of the spiritual ways that involved the undermining of the entire prevailing mythological world-view... The...

If I am asked to break the gospel and a gospel culture down into simple statements, I would borrow imagery from the man from Northern Ireland, from Belfast, C. S. Lewis. From The Lion, the Witch and t...

LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...

Preaching Commentary Enter John the Baptist John the Baptist enters the stage in Mark 1 as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (Isaiah 40:3) whose message and ministry is to “prepare the w...

We were in London watching the musical The Lion King. Surely you’ve seen the movie; the opening number is worth watching again this week to help your imagination seize the new earth with both hands. A...

Scholar John Walton points out that when Genesis 1 calls the world before creation tōhû, it is a modern cultural misunderstanding and mistranslation to think that it is describing the world as “formle...