Faith and Work on Renouncing Faith

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Tell us about Being a Christian

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Scripture

Hebrews 12:1-2, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Corinthians 1:25, Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:16, James 3:17

In Soul-Making , Allen Jones shares an intriguing visit to the Coptic Monastery of St. Macarius out in the Egyptian desert. There, he meets Father Jeremiah, a monk who spins tales of the desert fathe...

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Not All Who Wander are Lost

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Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Exodus 3:1-15, Genesis 12:1-9, Job 1:42, Psalm 139:, Acts 9:1-19

In the novel The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, there is a poem called the “Riddle of Strider.” One stanza goes like this: All that is gold does not glitter; Not all who wan...

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The First to Burn

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Daniel 3:16–18, 2 Chronicles 33:10–13 , Isaiah 50:7, Luke 22:61–62, Psalm 51:10–13 , 1 Peter 3:11-17

Facing imminent death, Thomas Cranmer—the Archbishop of Canterbury who crafted the foundational Book of Common Prayer for Anglican worship—succumbed to terror and signed a document renouncing hi...

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Author

A. W. Tozer

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Scripture

Colossians 3:2, Isaiah 26:3, Hebrews 12:1-3, Psalm 16:8, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:7

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

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Are People in the West Abandoning Faith or Just the Church?

Author

David Zahl

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Scripture

Exodus 32:1-4 , 1 Kings 18:21, Jeremiah 2:13, Romans 1:25, Psalm 115:4-8, Acts 17:22-23

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

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Author

Donna Schaper

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Sabbath

Keeping sabbath may involve us in relinquishing certain kinds of power on behalf of other kinds. If we allow it, sabbath may bring us to true authority, true power. The road is that of letting go, rat...

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A Mischief to Religion

Author

Joseph Glanvill

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Anti-Intellectualism has been a problem in the church for some time now. Consider the words of the 17th century English clergyman Joseph Glanvill, who had this to say about the role of reason in faith...

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Author

Karl Barth

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Scripture

Philippians 3:12, Romans 4:13-25, John 6:44, Acts 9:6-3, Ephesians 2:8-9

Faith means to be apprehended by that which is not ourselves, to be seized by God.

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What is Faith? Is it a Way of Knowing?

Author

Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Genesis 15:1-6, Exodus 14:10-14, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 23:, James 2:14-26

There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...

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Author

Karl Barth

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Sabbath

The command to celebrate the Sabbath, and therefore to cease and abstain from all our own knowledge, work and volition, even from all our arbitrary surrenders and inactivity, from all arbitrary quiesc...

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“Respecting” Religion by Making it Private

Author

Nancy Pearcey

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Scripture

Exodus 5:1–2, 1 Kings 18:21–39, Daniel 3:16–18, Matthew 5:14–16, Acts 4:19–20, Psalm 2:1–2, 10–12

Most secularists are too politically savvy to attack religion directly or to debunk it as false. So what do they do? They consign religion to the value sphere—which takes it out of the realm of true a...

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Author

Karl Barth

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Scripture

Genesis 15:6, Habakkuk 2:4, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:1-2, Matthew 17:20, Psalm 62:5-6

Only faith survives; faith which is not a work, not even a negative work; not an achievement, not even the achievement of humility. . . . Faith is the ground, the new order, the light. . . . Faith is ...

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Living Faith Through Selfless Service

Author

Oscar A. Romero

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Scripture

Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Samuel 17:, 1 John 12:24-25, Matthew 16:25, Psalm 116:15

Whoever seeks to avoid danger at all costs may ultimately lose the fullness of life, but the one who, out of love for Christ, dedicates themselves to serving others discovers a life that endures. Arch...

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Author

H.H. Farmer

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Scripture

Genesis 4:1-16 , Jonah 1:3, Proverbs 1:20-33, Acts 9:1-19, Romans 1:18-32, Psalm 1:1-6

If you go against the grain of the universe, you get splinters.

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Excluding Sinners is Excluding God

Author

Brennan Manning

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Scripture

Luke 19:7, Matthew 21:31, John 1:11, Luke 7:34, Mark 2:17

There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W...

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Author

Wayne Muller

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Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop—because our work is never completely done. . . . If we refuse rest until we are finished, we will...

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Grace & Guilt

Author

Paul Tournier

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Scripture

Genesis 3:1-24, Isaiah 6:1-8, Genesis 50:15-21, John 8:1-11, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 51:1-17

In Guilt and Grace , Swiss physician and Christian, Paul Tournier, writes… I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that rel...

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Author

Curtis Hutson

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Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 John 3:9, James 2:17, Colossians 2:6-7, Titus 3:5-7

You don’t turn from sin to get saved. You get saved to turn from sin.

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It is Better to Question than Merely Accept Difficult Circumstances

Author

Phillip Yancey

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Scripture

Job 13:23–24 , Genesis 18:25, Habakkuk 1:2–3 , Mark 9:24, Romans 8:22–26, Psalm 73:2–3, 16–17

If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora...

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The Frustrating Unpredictability of Faith

Author

Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

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Scripture

Galatians 6:9, John 3:8, Ecclesiastes 11:5, Isaiah 55:10-11, John 6:44

Writing about ministering to postmodern skeptics, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp share a helpful insight into the mystery of God's movement: The first lesson they have taught us about the path to f...

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For several years, Jason and I nurtured

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

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Scripture

Genesis 50:15-21, 1 Samuel 24:1-12, Micah 7:18-19, Matthew 18:21-35, Ephesians 4:31-32, Psalm 103:10-12

For several years, Jason and I nurtured a friendship that led us to decide to work together because we knew each other so well. But things soon became complicated between us. I began to notice some tr...

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Religious Faith in the Workplace? The Resistance May Not Be What You Think

Author

John C. Knapp

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More often than not, park-it-at-the-door thinking [about religious faith] has less to do with hostility to faith than with the avoidance of risk, for many employer’s fear that any hint of religion is ...

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Settling Accounts

Author

William E. Brown

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 6:33-34, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 37:25-26, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Galatians 6:9

The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed b...

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Author

Paul Tillich

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Scripture

Exodus 3:11-12, Matthew 14:28-31, Mark 9:24 , James 1:5-8 , Psalm 13:1-2, Psalm 42:5

Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

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Is Christian Faith Antithetical to Reason?

Author

Richard Robinson

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In his book The Allure of Gentleness , Dallas Willard includes a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard Robinson, a prominent atheist thinker from the mid-20th century. In his work An Atheist’...

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You Naughty, Naughty, Naughty People

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:8-13, Isaiah 6:5-7, Nehemiah 9:1-3, 1 John 1:8-9, Psalm 51:1-4, Luke 18:9-14

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

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Author

Gordon T. Smith

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I can lose my job; I might be released from a position. My career can come to an end when I retire from the organization I work in. But my vocation comes from God; it remains and is not in the end som...

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Author

John Calvin

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Scripture

Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 5:17, Galatians 5:14, James 2:17-22, Romans 3:31

We do not therefore by faith make void the law, but rather establish it.

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In the early fifth century, even as Rome

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 23:2, Daniel 3:16-18, 2 Chronicles 24:20-21, Matthew 5:9-10, Romans 12:19-21 , Psalm 82:3-4

In the early fifth century, even as Rome had officially embraced Christianity, the brutal spectacle of gladiatorial combat continued in the Colosseum, drawing massive crowds. One day, a Christian herm...

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Author

Marva J. Dawn

Keywords

Sabbath

Sabbath ceasing means to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our...

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