mystery on Appreciation

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will percei...

Now, in our lifetime, scientists are finding ever newer evidence for what some religious people called presence in the very organizing energy of the universe—from fractals, to holograms, to electro-ma...

In antiquity, the Greek word μυστήριον could mean “something secret” or “hidden,” or a “secret rite” of initiation.Mystery terminology was operative in philosophy, asin the works of Plato. Only those ...

Awe encourages us to think of God as a transcendent presence: someone outside and beyond our own small concerns and our own vulnerable lives. Awe opens us up to the possibility of living always on the...

God of love, we give thanks for the mystery of this meal, in which, even in our sin, you offer us love and grace. Therefore we are bold to confess our sin to you with one another. Merciful God,...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good new...

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of his heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion, to his glory and our edification. Amen.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of i...

Radiant Christ, You are Mystery You are Holy You are God Give us eyes to see you and your glory Eyes to see your sustaining and saving Eyes to see your future and your now Eyes to see and to follow. A...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Mixed Loyalties Diving straight into 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 without giving a nod to 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:2 gives a strange impression, bec...

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message. To see all that is offered us at the windows of the soul, and to reach out and rece...

Preaching Summary An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion i...

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in a...

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and...

Eternal God, we recognize that Your ways are mysterious. Teach us to be still and to wait for You. We confess our sinfulness, our need for control, and our discomfort with the unknown. Instead of turn...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so amazingly know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it them...

Preaching Commentary Introduction John 1 contains some of the richest Christological passages in all of Scripture. It rewards deep meditation on its meaning. Its use as the Christmas gospel text is...

Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...

God, our Father: Your love gives us more than we can ever hope for, and far beyond what we deserve. You clothe us in the righteousness of Christ. You give us dreams and visions of what we can become b...

Lord God Almighty: our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer: There is no place where You are absent. There is no corner of our world that’s hidden from You. There is nothing about us You do not know, no ac...

An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion is that such churches...

Leader: God of promise, God of Mystery, you have sent a messenger to awaken us.        All: May the promise of your dawn awaken our hearts and minds.       May the light of your promise g...

Context The body of the letter continues in chapter 3. If it were not for chapters 4-6, we could even believe that Paul was about to close this letter after we read what appears to be a benediction i...

Pastor: Take up the full armor of God, so that standing firm in your faith, you may go out into the world with joy and hope to make known the mystery of the Gospel, through the power of Almighty God...