bible and theology on Margins

The shepherds show us that we don’t prepare to receive the king of heaven the same way we prepare to meet the celebrities of our day, through earthly displays of showiness. In fact, receiving our King...

For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living. . . . Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasin...

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Liturgical Context On this Third Sunday of Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary texts harmonize with the epistle’s praise of Jesus...

Jesus’ parable [of the banquet in Luke 14:16-23] makes it clear that there are business and career invitations . Some people had real estate that demanded attention, and others had invested in ox...

In Israel’s tribal society redemption was the act of a patriarch who put his own resources on the line to ransom a family member who had been driven to the margins of society by poverty, who had been ...

Before we get to Easter, we need to linger: in the vulnerability of the basin and the towel at the remembrance and promise of the table in the struggle and betrayal of the garden in the shadows and sh...

Depth of mercy! Can there be Mercy still reserved for me?

In this context (Matthew 6)…storing up treasures focuses particularly on the compassionate use of material resources to meet others’ physical and spiritual needs, in keeping with the priorities of God...

He is a poor man who can only measure his wealth in dollars.

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

The million little things that drop into your hands - the small opportunities each day brings He leaves us free to use or abuse and goes unchanging along His silent way.

At start of spring I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter’s accumulation of paper, pages I do not want to read. Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents...

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.

Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort.

Your mercies are new every morning, oh Lord. You renew us on a regular basis. Every day we fall short. You have made us righteous through the power of Jesus, but take Jesus’ sacrifice for granted. Ple...

Most of life is lived in the gaps between great moments. The peaks seem to protrude only after miles and miles of death valleys. While the Bible reveals its characters in terms of their high points, w...

Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart.

Right now counts forever.

We all carry about in our pockets His very nails.

The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of it [sc. God’s glory]; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch t...

Fatherlike he tends and spares us Well our feeble frame he knows In his hand he gently bears us Rescues us from all our foes

Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.

Live to the point of tears.

Memory is more indelible than ink.

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation."

If I withhold mercy, I have lost touch with the gospel. I have lost touch with God’s undeserved kindness and pardon.

In the midst of all you are facing Your burdens Your responsibilities Your hustle Hear the invitation “Come to the Table” In the midst of all you are facing Your longing Your ambition Your distractio...

Hide not the offense of the cross, lest you make it of none effect. The angles and corners of the gospel are its strength: to pare them off is to deprive it of power. Toning down is not the increase o...

Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.