idolatry on Wonder

Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: The God Who Transforms As the Lectionary readings traverse from last week’s readings in Acts 7 (Stephen’s sermon and martyrdom) into this week’s reading of Pau...

Two golden rules at the heart of spirituality. You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character o...

Pastor: “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” All: Yet because of the sin in our hearts, we have strayed far from yo...

Pastor: Oh God, you have been so gracious to us. You have given us so many wonderful gifts—they outnumber the stars in the sky! You have kept your promises to us, and you have been faithful! All: But ...

Your grace, O God, has appeared for the salvation of all, calling us to renounce false gods and irresponsible love. In the midst of our sin, Christ has appeared as a sign of our hope, redeeming us and...

A World in Chaos At the risk of sounding dramatic, both the U.S. and the world seem to be reaching a level of chaos unmatched since 9/11. The confusion and shifting loyalties, not to mention the 26,0...

Preaching Commentary Different Levels of Maturity? There is an interesting dynamic I have noticed that often occurs as people begin to mature into adults. In my life it was a stage that took place ...

Idols are dangerous when a worshiper, having lost patience in God, transfers his hope and joy into a deity represented by a handmade thing and cries to it: “Awake and arise!” In this move, human antic...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early...

Joy’s trick is to supply  Dry lips with what can cool and slake,  Leaving them dumbstruck also with an  ache Nothing can satisfy.

God of grace, power and glory, and our Heavenly Father: You raise up nations in your grace and holiness; and You bring down nations who go after and serve other gods of their own making. You are good–...

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

“My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the...

One has only the choice between God and idolatry. There is no other possibility. For the faculty of worship is in us, and it is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another.

This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Mountains I . Why Start with Mountains? We start with mountains because there are an abundance of Bible passages related ...

God of the common and of the uncommon. You meet us in the ordinary routines of life–when we play and when we rest, while we work and while we worship. And You reveal yourself in the extraordinary, too...

What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.

Many Israelites Had Leprosy, but Naaman Was Healed As we go from mountains to fresh water, we go from Elijah to Elisha.  Despite having a double dose of Elijah’s power and a fraction of his hair, Eli...

At this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is bowing down and serving something or someone—an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit, or God thr...

What each one honors before all else, what before all things he admires and loves, this for him is God.

There are more idols in the world than there are realities.

Tony Reinke does a great job capturing the deep ambivalence many of us feel about our smartphones in this short excerpt: This blasted smartphone! Pesk of productivity. Tenfold plague of beeps and ...

Leader: Sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord! Bless his name! Proclaim his salvation from day to day! Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works...

Almighty God, during this tumultuous time, we see so clearly our frailty and powerlessness. Any illusions of strength and grandeur have been stripped away. We are utterly dependent upon you. Even with...

Why Start with Mountains? When we join the story, Elijah has been in conflict with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel over the turning of the nation and the people toward Baal.  Meanwhile, a drought has s...

Preaching Commentary Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son.  Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of...

Please forgive us, O Lord, for we often forget how powerful you are. You are the potentate of time, yet we think we rule our lives. We are sorry for creating images of you that are smaller than realit...

In a world where sex, wealth, power, and beauty are the dominant idols, these idols will flood our dominant media.