You prepare a table before me (Ps 23:5) As the psalmist, David shifts his attention to protection from the valley of death in verse 4, the new metaphor in verse 5, God as the bounteous host. The psalmist paints this beautiful picture of a rich table where God can defy all his enemies. For one […]
There is much conversation in my church right now about whether we are a declining church body and whether or not we will survive this decline. So, surveyors of statistics tell us that we are in for a long, slow dip before we hit rock bottom and recover. That is not exactly the message you […]
In a magazine for pastors [Pulpit Helps, August 1997], one fellow wrote with one of those “you know you’re in trouble when …” lists. This one is, of course, addressed to preachers and is called “So Long, Pastor” You Know It’s Over When … You return from vacation to find the visiting preacher’s name in […]
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his […]
Sometimes, when I look back at my time in the parish, I feel for my congregation members. My parents raised me with the idea that “good enough” was unacceptable. Complacency is “as soon as you are comfortable with where you are, you are heading in the wrong direction.” The Signs of Complacency. 1) Satisfaction with […]
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as […]
One question I love to ask guests on my podcast is: “What do you want your legacy to be?” The illustration below shows what happens when your answer goes astray. A young man was to be sentenced to the penitentiary. The judge had known him from childhood, for he was well acquainted with his father—a […]
In his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn] recalled the words he heard as a child when his elders sought to explain the ruinous upheavals in Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” He added, “If I were called upon to identify briefly the […]
“Can’t see your nose in front of your face “ Idiom Meaning – Being oblivious to something obvious, in clear view. On the Road to Emmaus Jesus had His faithful disciples not recognize him. It is easy to focus on the disciples short-comings. To see the disciples as men with a weak faith or just […]
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.[1] Luke 24:34 Near the end of Irving Stone’s powerful novel, Love Is Eternal, about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, there is a moving conversation between Mrs. Lincoln and the President’s bodyguard, Parker, who had been summoned to Mrs. Lincoln’s room. “Why were you not at […]
