in christ on Human Development

Human flourishing is first and foremost a flourishing of relationships—our relationship with God and with others. But human flourishing is also a product of fruitful work that reflects our God who wor...

Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revelation, we see several de...

Preaching commentary Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revela...

True freedom is not found by seeking to develop the powers of the self without limits, for the human person is not made for autonomy but for true relatedness in love and obedience; and this also entai...

Deacon or other leader In peace, let us pray to the Lord, saying, "Lord, have mercy" ( or "Kyrie eleison"). For the holy Church of God, that it may be filled with truth and lov...

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...

The goal of human freedom is not in freedom itself, nor it is in man, but in God. By giving man freedom, God has yielded to man a piece of His Divine authority, but with the intention that man himself...

The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to...

Our selves are fashioned; we are adorned with histories that incline us to saunter, swagger, or shuffle. Given our histories, some of us move through the world with a cape; some of us don baggy sweate...

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ in-dwelling us and changing us into His likeness.

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...

Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

If you never left your home and avoided all interaction with other people, you couldn’t be characterized as a loving person. Instead, you might even be unloving because of your lack of concern for oth...

I have come to see clearly that life is more than self. It is more than doing what I want, striving for what will benefit me, dreaming of all I can be. Life is all about my relationship with God. Ther...

We live in a fast-paced society. We’re used to quick results. It seems that much of our time and money is spent trying to save time—to do things faster, more efficient, and with less effort. We hurry ...

God of grace and truth, all-loving and all-holy: Give us the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ, and the will of Christ so that we may show the glory and goodness of Christ to the world: to neighbors...

Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin with words of adoration...

A number of mature Christians have described the Christian journey as one in which the follower of Jesus experiences different levels of grace.  Let us imagine . . . that there are many rooms in t...

To a true child of God, the invisible bond that unites all believers to Christ is far more tender, and lasting, and precious; and, as we come to recognize and realize that we are all dwelling in one s...

Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to reconsider,” we all kno...

God's plan was to bring into being a host of sons and daughters whom He would indwell; through whom He would live and manifest Himself; and in and through whom Christ would reign supreme. We are t...

My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Waiting Hurts For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is ...

The relational posture of a Christian is anchored in our union with Christ. God dwells in us, by the Spirit, nearer to us than our very breath-Anyone who lives from this depth of intimate relationship...

Preaching Commentary Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which...

Preaching Commentary What Are We Waiting For? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sang, “Every day you get one more yard, you take it on faith, you take it to the heart, the waiting is the hardest part...

The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus, we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom....