bible and theology from acts 3

God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, "no fishing."

Almighty and merciful God, the fountain of all goodness, who knows the thoughts of our hearts: We confess that we have sinned against you. Wash us, we implore you, from the stains of our past sins...

This prayer could be offered by a single voice, all praying in unison, or as indicated with a single voice on the regular print and all voices on the bold print. Merciful and Mighty Christ You pro...

O God, we pray for the church, which is set amid the con­fusion of contemporary life and is face-to-face with a great new task. Be with your church, O God. Grant the church a new birth through the...

Jesus, Resurrected One Light of New Life Breaker of Chains Bringer of Grace and Hope You are moving, speaking, inviting We hear your call to repentance The turning will save us We hear your Good Ne...

May the Holy Spirit empower you now and always to speak and live the Good News of Jesus for you and for all. Amen.

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have comm...

O God who will not let us go, we confess that we have been so wrapped up in ourselves that have not loved You with our whole hearts, and we have not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. By Your g...

With the recent release of a new installment in the Indiana Jones movie series, our family decided to re-watch the original trilogy (I like to act as though Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never existe...

We know mistakes were made.

The practice of confession in the context of a liturgy or in a private ecclesiastical setting has declined drastically over the past fifty years, and in particular since the Protestant Reformation in ...

An old joke can sum up the failure nicely: It’s said that Thomas Aquinas was once brought into a great city where he was to meet the pope. He saw huge churches, clerics in ornate garb, and great armie...

One Sunday, an usher brought to me an offering plate holding a bacon biscuit that a college student had deposited in the morning offering. A little note attached said, “Silver and gold have I none, bu...

One of the fascinating features of the Gospel writers’ accounts of the trial of Jesus is this blending of the legal and moral factors. They all indicate that in both Jewish and Roman courts a certain ...

In The Essential Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, the cartoon character Calvin says to his tiger friend, Hobbes, “I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it.” ...

In the epic conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity...

A good apology has three parts: 1. I’m sorry 2. It’s my fault 3. What can I do to make it right? But most people forget the third part

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we don’t take evil seriously after all; it means that we do. In fact, it means we take it doubly seriously. To begin with, it means a settled determination to name evil a...

Many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo repentance and pseudo bliss.

To abide in love means to have open eyes, to be able to see something that only a few see, namely, the outstretched, begging hands of the others who are along the way, and now not be able to do anythi...

Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them...

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.