Thought Exercise on Innocence

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Atonement

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 1:7, Romans 5:8, Micah 6:8, Hebrews 9:22, Psalm 51:1-2, Isaiah 1:18

When something has gone wrong, justice needs to be done and seen to be done. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement examines exactly this same dynamic. The central character, Bryony Tallis, makes a grave mista...

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The Guilty Among the Innocent

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Prussian king Frederick the Great was once touring a Berlin prison. The prisoners fell on their knees before him to proclaim their innocence—except for one man, who remained silent. Frederick called t...

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Defenders Of Children

Author

Ben Lansing and D. J.Marotta

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 1:15–22, 1 Samuel 1:20–28, 2 Kings 4:18–37, Matthew 2:16–18, Mark 10:13–16, Psalm 127:3–5

Pharaoh viewed the Hebrews as a growing threat to the Egyptian way of life, so he ordered all Hebrew baby boys killed. King Herod feared that a future king would arise from Bethlehem, so he ordered al...

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Someone to Blame

Author

Jerry Bridges

Keywords

Scripture

Leviticus 16:10, 21-22 , Genesis 37:18-28 , Isaiah 53:4-6 , John 11:49-52, Luke 23:13-25, Psalm 69:4, 7-9

The deep economic crisis that occurred in Russia soon after the collapse of communism resulted in a new wave of resentment and hostility toward Russian Jews. In times of crisis people look for a scape...

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Haters of Humanity?

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 8:1-3, 2 Timothy 3:12, 1 Peter 4:12-16, Matthew 5:10-12, Luke 6:41-42, Genesis 3:8-19, Genesis 39:6-20, Job 2:11-13, Job 42:7-9

Most of us are aware of various persecutions that took place during the first few centuries of the church’s existence. One particularly brutal local persecution took place during the reign of Nero, wh...

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Joy Beacons

Author

Richard Swenson

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 2:12, Isaiah 11:6, Zechariah 8:5, Luke 18:16, Psalm 8:2, Matthew 18:3, Matthew 19:14

Katja, our seven-year-old granddaughter, stepped in it, as they say. She had doggie droppings on the bottom of her tennies. Not just one foot, mind you, but both. Her mother, Maureen, suggested she le...

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The Faithfulness of a Few

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 28:20, Revelation 2:10, Matthew 5:10-12, Matthew 10:22, 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, 1 Peter 4:12-14, Romans 8:35-37, John 15:18-20, Psalm 31:23, Matthew 25:21, 1 Corinthians 4:2, 1 Timothy 6:12, Matthew 24:45-46

Pliny, a Roman Governor serving around 112 AD, faced a challenging situation regarding Christianity. Many Church historians believe that by his time, it had become illegal to profess the Christian fai...

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Missing the Message

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

What if you were sent a message, but you never received it? Or, put another way—what if the most important message of your life was sent to you, but it never reached you? It’s hard for us in the digit...

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The Covenants of Scripture

Author

Merrill F. Unger

Keywords

Covenant

Scripture

Hebrews 13:20, Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:14-19, Genesis 3:14, Genesis 8:20-9, Genesis 9:5-6, Genesis 12:1-3, Galatians 3:16, John 8:56-58, 2 Corinthians 3:7-9, Deuteronomy 30:1-10, Deuteronomy 30:1, 2 Samuel 7:4-17, Luke 1:31-33, Acts 1:6, Revelation 19:16, Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, Hebrews 8:8-12, Galatians 3:13-20

Eternal covenant, Heb 13:20—The redemptive covenant before time began, between the Father and the Son. By this covenant we have eternal redemption, an eternal peace from the ‘God of peace’, through th...

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Persuading Ourselves of the Truth

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 5:20, Galatians 6:3, 2 Timothy 3:13, Proverbs 12:15, Romans 1:21, 1 John 1:8

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...

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Justice is Personal

Author

Andy Crouch

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Leviticus 19:15, Galatians 3:28, James 2:8-9, Amos 5:24, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17

When did the topic of justice become important to you?” Gideon Strauss posed that question to two dozen people crammed into our living room one fall evening in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Some of us wer...

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What it Means to Be "Childlike"

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 18:3-4, Hebrews 11:1, Genesis 28:10-17, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 11:6, Luke 2:8-20, James 1:17

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

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A Child Entering the Kingdom

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 11:25, Isaiah 66:2, Proverbs 3:5, 1 Peter 5:5-6, James 4:10

Being childlike does not save us, nor is it meritorious in itself. One can be childlike and be very far from the kingdom. Jesus is telling us that in order to enter the kingdom we need to have the tru...

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Shame Enters our Lives at an Early Age

Author

Curt Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 34:5, Hebrews 12:2, Luke 15:20–24, Isaiah 54:4, Genesis 37:23–28, Isaiah 54:4

Shame makes its way into our stories at an early age. So early, in fact, that we usually have no conscious memory of our initial encounters with it. This can take place as early as fifteen to eighteen...

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The Original Sin of a Newborn

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 51:5, Romans 5:12, Ephesians 2:3

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his unc...

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Remaining a Little Child Of God

Author

Simon Tugwell

Keywords

It is recognizing one’s nothingness, expecting everything from the good God, just as a little child expects everything from its father; it is not getting anxious about anything, not trying to make one...

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Children' s Innate Passion for Justice

Author

Gary A. Haugen

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:8-10, Exodus 23:2-3, 1 Kings 3:16-28 , Luke 18:1-8, Matthew 27:24 , Psalm 82:2-4

As any parent of small children will tell you, children have an amazingly acute sense of justice. Even the most fractional disparity in the distribution of the most trivial family good will be met wit...

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Christian Maturity and Gentleness

Author

John E. Biersdorf

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 15:1, 2 Timothy 2:24-25, Isaiah 42:3, Philippians 4:5, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 11:29

Compassion is expressed in gentleness. When I think of persons I know who model for me the depths of spiritual life, I am struck by their gentleness. Their eyes communicate the residue of solitary bat...

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Experience is Honest

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs ...

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God's Image: Our True Identity

Author

Chuck DeGroat

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 3:1-7, Romans 7:14-25, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 51:10

God formed us in his image — a glorious thought! — but we all participate in the abandonment of that original identity…Does that mean that your precious little child is a dirty rotten sinner, as some ...

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This Intention

Author

William Law

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:23-24, Matthew 6:33, Psalm 90:12, Romans 12:1-2, Philippians 3:13-14, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Proverbs 16:3, Revelation 2:10, Matthew 5:10-12, Philippians 1:27, Acts 2:42

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you ...

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An Analogy of Childlike Prayer

Author

M. Basil Pennington

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:14-15, Matthew 6:9, Psalm 131:2, Romans 8:15

A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off her toys and friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds his little one close to him, he cares little whether the child is looking...

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The Mystery of Perfection

Author

Irwyn L. Ince Jr.

Keywords

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

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Surrounded by Beauty

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 21:22-27, Psalm 27:4, Psalm 8:, Psalm 96:6, Isaiah 33:17

I am abashed, solitary, helpless, surrounded by a beauty that can never belong to me. But this sadness generates within me an unspeakable reverence for the holiness of created things, for they are pur...

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The Fire of Fairy Tales

Author

G. K. Chesterton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, Romans 1:20, Psalm 118:24, Job 38:4, Lamentations 3:23

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this…. We all like astonishing tales because they to...

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Mirror, Mirror

Author

Richard Rohr

Keywords

Good people will mirror goodness in us, which is why we love them so much, Not so mature people will mirror their own unlived and confused life unto us, which is why they confuse and confound us so mu...

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A Firm Foundation of Joy

Author

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw

Keywords

Children—and then adults—with a firm foundation of joy also have the capacity to make positive contributions in the world. It starts with play and exploration. When a child has a firm foundation of jo...

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Belief Like a Child: Once Upon a Time

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Children

Once upon a time, which is to say at a time beyond time, or belief that there was not because there could not be such belief was not because there could not be such at a different kind of time altoget...

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The Virtue that Lies Beyond Heroism

Author

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Keywords

God intended man to have all good, but in . . . God’s time; and therefore all disobedience, all sin, consists essentially in breaking out of time. Hence the restoration of order by the Son of God ha...

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Before I Knew God, I knew Nature

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 3:1-12, Deuteronomy 8:2-3, Revelation 12:6, Job 12:7-10, Isaiah 35:1

Before I knew God, I knew nature. I knew the feeling of warmth from the sun on my skin. The crunch of leaves on the sidewalk. The sparkle of the fresh powder snow. It was not until I was a teenager th...

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