life on planet earth on Exile

In this stirring and thoughtful argument, N.T. Wright illustrates the complexity of evil by telling the story of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his return to his home country of Russia after many years in...

The pastor R.C. Sproul was studying in the Netherlands in the last 1960s and randomly struck up a conversation with a Dutch woman. The conversation was a common, enjoyable interaction, but when it was...

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

Our hunger is the exile’s hunger, but it is also the first step in our homecoming. We hunger, and in doing so learn the shape of our emptiness is the world’s great emptiness in or to prepare room for ...

Isaiah 56:8 says, “The Sovereign Lord declares – he who gathers the exiles of Israel: ‘I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.’” Sisters and brothers, the Lord grants us forgiv...

Zephaniah reminds the people of God that God will gather the exiles. God will restore his people. Believe the good news today. Through our Messiah, your sins have been forgiven. Thanks be to God! Ame...

Leader: "Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you." P...

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east...

Leader: Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. People: Make your praises heard, and say, ‘Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Leader: See, I will bring them fr...

[The exodus] points beyond itself to a greater need for deliverance from the totality of evil and restoration to relationship with God than it achieved by itself. Such a deliverance was accomplished b...

For as long as there is a compassionate Father, there will be a home, a table, and a feast. This was Israel’s great consolation: exile was the middle act of the drama, but it was not the final scene.

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

God’s dealings with us are always on the order of what he did with Abram and Sarai. He makes his promises, and he will keep his promises; but just how and when he will keep them is something for which...

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains.  There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously.  Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

Lord John Culpepper was witness to a dramatic turn of events in English history. He was a member of the privy council of King Charles I, who was executed in 1649, apparently contrary to the law and th...

Our culture is afraid of grief, but not just because it is afraid of death. That is natural and normal, a proper reaction to the Last Enemy. Our culture is afraid because it seems to be afraid of the ...

These disciples turned the world upside down because they saw a dead man come back to life by the power of God. And whatever that “knowing” and “seeing” did in them, it did it at a deep level because ...

What does true forgiveness and reconciliation look like? The world was given such an image the day Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa. What was so significant was not just that a...

No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no o...

Even desolation is a world to be explored.

Especially in the Hebrew Bible, wilderness is the privileged site where God comforts the Hebrew people or their representatives at times of crisis in their lives. In the wilderness God calls and leads...

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

I fled the country I thought I’d leave this behind.

It is good to be between a ruined house of bandage and a holy promised land.

If you don’t come apart for a while, you will come apart after a while.

Pastor: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. All: From the days of our f...

The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.

Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...

Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere. Almighty God, we are sorry for the times we’ve failed to help others experience the goodness of your presence. For the times we’ve intentiona...

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. A voice cries: “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God Every valley shall be lifted up, ...