Lately, I keep hearing trumpets. Did you hear them at Prince Philip’s funeral? “Taps” was played at my father-in-law’s military interment ceremony last month. I read trumpet texts at the funeral. “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling…
I imagine setting up a table in the student union with a sign that just asks “Why?” Part of the mission of Geneva Campus Ministry at the University of Iowa is to help students explore this question. The university gives the students knowledge and helps them develop skills but often ignores the fundamental question of…
Gates offer protection. They also imprison. Gates are entrances and exits, transition points. Scripture celebrates the gates of God’s Kingdom. “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in” (Ps. 24:7,9). Ezekiel envisioned God’s presence returning through the east temple gate (Ez. 43), and…
We’re all hungry. Some are hungry for literal food. We might be hungry for the social engagement of eating together. COVID has prompted hunger for many aspects of life. We hunger for communion – with people and with God. God promises a banquet. In my high school we had Junior/Senior Banquets, not proms. We could…
Rabbis point out that creation’s seventh day had no end, no “evening and morning.” It is the context for life, the whole story to come. Key words in Biblical passages help us make connections. The parallel words and days in Genesis 1 show the construction and populating of God’s creation temple. We miss out because…
I am giving stones for Christmas. No, not lumps of coal for the naughty, although 2020 might deserve it. I am giving geodes – plain-looking rocks on the outside, with hollow centers of beautiful crystalline structures. Geodes have been significant in my ministry. As the first pastor of Pathway Ministries in Byron Center, Michigan, I…
This past year has reminded me of the Book of Ecclesiastes, with its recurring theme of “Meaningless! Meaningless! . . . Everything is meaningless” (1:2). We have been stopped from much of our “chasing after the wind” to reflect. We wrestle with how to live in the time of COVID. Frustration Early on we were…
Remember the song “Tradition!” from the Fiddler on the Roof? Tevye sings the play’s theme of how to have balance in life in a rapidly changing and threatening world. Tradition gives structure and stability. Tradition forms our identity (being) and direction (doing). Christian Courier is a tradition, and this issue explores other traditions. Tevye says that, “without…
Lament. Lament is an old word we are hearing more. Lament is a prayer that expresses frustration with the world. The most common Biblical Psalms are laments. They address God with poetic depictions of struggles and usually a confession of trust and vow of praise and thanksgiving. They often seem to be written retrospectively, when one is out of the pit.
Heresy is that which deviates from established beliefs. Christianity itself is therefore a heresy. Christianity challenges established beliefs in our culture. It is hard for a heresy to get a hearing because it seems foreign. I completed a strange semester with students at the University of Iowa as a campus pastor this year, while also teaching at a private college with a Reformed heritage. All my students have some church background, but their foreground is more Western culture.
May 21 is Ascension Day, and May 24 Pentecost. I have said Ascension Day is all about the cloud – true in the Book of Acts. Luke gives us a different emphasis at the end of his Gospel. Luke presents how the divine purpose in Scripture culminates in Jesus’ ascension. After his resurrection, Jesus tells his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.
Why is technology highlighted as Cainite? Technology is the study of an art or a skill, but it has come to mean the material objects produced by such art or skill, especially scientific or industrial products. How does the Bible view its purpose? ‘In the beginning. . .’ We were created to create, but this is not unique to humans.
Uploaded Failed |  |
In uncertain times, we need hope-filled news!
