Imaging God
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Imaging God

Picture God. We might have a mental picture, but the commandment against graven images tells us not to limit God with our pictures. The Scriptures are full of metaphors to help us relate to God: Father, King, Lord, Shepherd, Rock. When theologians describe God, they often use negatives. God is independent, immutable, infinite, indivisible, and…

History and advocacy
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History and advocacy

Dr. Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood takes the reader on a journey of the Christian woman through historical facts, clever quotes and heart-wrenching stories. As a professor of medieval, women’s and church history at Baylor University, Barr is more than qualified to lead us on this entertaining and knowledgeable exploration into why…

Lectio Divina
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Lectio Divina

The elder googled it, thought it sounded like a new age mystical practice and suggested I not choose the topic of lectio divina for their adult education. That response was reason enough, so I introduced them to this way of reading Scripture, which the church has practiced for 1500 years with the encouragement of monks,…

The Genevan Psalms
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The Genevan Psalms

Two months ago in this space I recounted the story behind my longstanding interest in the biblical Psalter and its liturgical use. In the mid 1980s I came across the Genevan Psalter, with which I had previously not had much contact. My childhood church sang largely from the 1912 Psalter, with a very few Genevan…

Our childhood Bijbel
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Our childhood Bijbel

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Louisa:I found a treasure at the Thrift Store. It was an Anne De Vries Kleuterbijbel Vertelboek (Kindergarten Story Book Bible). Though the stitching is broken and some pages missing, Bob and I are taking turns reading it out loud after supper for devotions. Initially, we stumbled on lots of the Dutch words, but we are…

Listening for trumpets
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Listening for trumpets

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…

Psalm 139 Revisited
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Psalm 139 Revisited

Search me not, for dust is what you’ll find.Divinely-made, but dust remains, from whatAn image once contained in flesh and blood. Search me some, for likeness fair – a faceTo nameless fear – still stays inside.A place to hide abides within, amid The Me, the small-fall character once full,Rife with life and love and piety.So…

Praying the Psalms
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Praying the Psalms

As a young man living and studying in Minnesota, I accidentally stumbled upon a form of prayer extending back to the early church and into biblical times. I was browsing in the bookstore of Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul and found a red paper-bound volume titled The Daily Office, with a lengthy subtitle: “Matins…

Accented antithesis
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Accented antithesis

“So long as you pick up and use Proverbs like a telephone book, you are most likely to get a wrong number.” – Calvin Seerveld If you dare, crack open this book and be ready for a jolt. It’s a book that strives to refresh the “literary verve and contentious bite” of scripture. It’s a…

Challenging the old labels
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Challenging the old labels

Will you allow me to ask a taboo question? What constitutes a liberal or a conservative Christian? Is it whether you prefer a piano or guitar in the worship service instead of an organ? Is it how you think about Genesis and the scientific measurements of the age and history of the universe? Is it…

Joseph’s ‘Little Bible’
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Joseph’s ‘Little Bible’

As I was preparing a chapel meditation on Job some weeks ago, I read a commentary that described Job’s story as a microcosm of the entire biblical redemptive narrative. It begins with an idyllic life of one of God’s servants, takes him through the darkest valleys of affliction, brings in his friends’ proposed solutions to…

The Final Frontier
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The Final Frontier

“Space: The final frontier.” These words characterizing the voyage of the Starship Enterprise will sound familiar to Star Trek fans. The original series rode the scientific and cultural optimism of the late 1960’s.