history on Living Life

[T]here are only two stories that make any difference—God’s story and the human story. We all are living out different versions of those two stories with an infinite number of variations. God’s story,...

Preaching Commentary Kingdom Reversals This parable of Jesus is like the other two before it (cf., Matt. 21:28–32, 33–44) in that its focus is on kingdom reversals. Continuing the theme begun in Ma...

When someone promises us something wonderful, we can hardly wait for that promise to be fulfilled. If the promise is something good, we want it now! We really don’t like to wait. And yet the very best...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Old, Old Story Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (and perhaps Pentecost) are the resolution of a story that starts with all the way...

Preaching Commentary Unexpected Circumstances Strange days,  unexpected  times: a belief-defying announcement of a pregnancy, a wearying journey to be taxed, an uncomfortable birthing bed in a hewn...

Unexpected Circumstances Strange days,  unexpected  times: a belief-defying announcement of a pregnancy, a wearying journey to be taxed, an uncomfortable birthing bed in a hewn out cleft in the rock ...

Another example struck me forcibly during the 2014 season of Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall in London. (The “Proms,” as they are known, make up a major annual festival, offering world-class mus...

In this short excerpt, Father Roderick Strange speaks to those who want to write off the church. It is written primarily to a Roman Catholic audience, but it relates quite well to Protestants as well:...

In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for his extraordinary bravery. While flying at 13,000 feet above the Zuider Zee in his Wellington bomber, he climbed out...

Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living hand to mouth.

"Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges by name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliv...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , Thomas Kelly describes the inward reality that governs the course of history: Out in front of us is the drama of men and of nations, seethi...

In 1991, a yet-to-be-identified flea market enthusiast discovered a simple picture frame to his liking. Securing the purchase, the shopper returned home only to discover an ancient document hiding inc...

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD ha...

Pastor: I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. All: I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. Pastor: ...

In the Christian view, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ. If there is a God, we characters in his play have to hope that he put some information about himself in the play....

Pastor: You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; ...

In the Christian theology of history, the death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; hence all the roads of the future diverge.

Precisely how a man nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago, who claimed to be the Son of God, came to signify reality, in contradiction to the sawdust men of destiny with their fraudulent wars and revoluti...

When I was in Moscow in 1990 preaching at the Moscow Baptist Church, just blocks from the Kremlin, I told a packed crowd of worshipers that all through human history, as far back as recorded time and ...

If the Cross of Christ is anything to the mind, it is surely everything – the most profound reality and the sublimest mystery. One comes to realize that literally all the wealth and glory of the gospe...

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.

Good liturgy, whether formal or informal, ought never to be simply a corporate emoting session, however “Christian,” but a fresh and awed attempt to inhabit the great unceasing liturgy that is going o...

Pastor: Almighty and eternal God, we adore You as the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus, and with the whole Church on earth and all the hosts of heaven we ascribe to You honor and blessing...

This kingdom of God life is not a matter of waking up each morning with a list of chores or an agenda to be tended to, left on our bedside table by the Holy Spirit for us while we slept. We wake up al...

Based on Isaiah 59:8,  NRSV The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths.  Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace. You You are t...

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

From [age three] on out, stories will not only entertain you, they will explain you to others and to yourself.