god on Geography

Yahweh, unlike the mountain and fertility gods of the ancient Canaanites, refuses to be bound by any geographical locale. All of the 'high places' pretending to capture the divine presence mus...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

Advent 2020: Tear Down the Heavens Tear Down the Heavens Updated & expanded for 2023 AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Longing created by exile For the...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Longing created by exile For the Israelites, who escaped enslavement and exile in Egypt, the experience at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19 was formative. It...

From a purely biological point of view man is not at home anywhere in the world.

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said “Let us pray,” and we dutifully shut our eyes....

There is no mere world or matters of fact for covenant theology; there is always the wonder and duty to the concrete moment at hand, where God’s illimitable gift of life is given into our hands – to h...

Knowledge has to do with the interrelation of humans and the created world. This brings it within the sphere of the biblical belief that humans are made in the image of the creator, and that in conseq...

A friend of mine, lecturing in a theological college in Kenya, introduced his students to “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” This, he said, was a movement of thought and scholarship that in its ear...

Gracious God, you tend to the earth as your vineyard, longing for it to bring fruit. You want our society and our lives to look more and more like the Kingdom of Heaven. We work against your plans, so...

Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood. *for contrast

Shepherd of Israel, God of hosts, we have turned away from you, neglecting the welfare of your creation, ignoring the plight of your people, trampling on the creatures and the plants you have made, t...

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born ...

Just as the word itself suggests, a worldview is an overall view of the world. It’s not a physical view of the world, like the sight of planet Earth you might get from an orbiting space station. Rathe...

God will use whatever he wants to display his glory. Heavens and stars. History and nations. People and problems.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counse...

If we are to be God’s image-bearers with regard to creation, then we will carry on his pattern of work. His world is not hostile, so that it needs to be beaten down like an enemy. Rather, its potentia...

Have you ever heard of the Greatest Books of the Western World collection? Published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1954, this comprehensive series was edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. A...

The Lord says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have surely seen the affliction of my people. I have heard their cry, for I know their s...

We don't get to decide who God is.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God: “How awesome are your deeds! All the earth worships you And sings praises to you; Th...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea “oceans.”  The point is to relate our present-day affinity for the ocean, seashore, and beach...

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness li...

While I don’t agree with late professor and scholar Marcus Borg on significant theological positions, I appreciate how he described the context surrounding Jesus’ new paradigm of kingdom living: In hi...

Stop telling God what he can do.

There is a king who rules, a people who are ruled, and a sphere where this, rule is recognized as taking place. Put another way, the Kingdom of God involves: (a) God’s people (b) in God’s place (c) un...