Spilled Coffee on Ancient Scrolls
Finding Ways to Live as Humans Fully Alive
God created the day AND the night. The light AND the darkness. He then created a balance or a rhythm between the two. A dance if you will. And in the grand scheme of things, this is a good thing. How can you truly know happiness if you’ve never been sad?
The image that most of us conjure when we think of God becoming human is a newborn lying in a manger with Mary and Joseph smiling from ear to ear. The scene evokes warm feelings of nostalgia and motherhood and wonder. Most people today don’t give much thought about the mechanics or the theology behind …
Now here I sit, enamored with this unique thing of beauty created by the toddler. There’s not another handprint in the world exactly like it. The image represents so much potential. It displays innocence, a strong will, creativity, intelligence, in short, the image of God--and yet it was produced by a human, and therefore very fragile, for it will soon disappear with a spray and a wipe.
Think about that for a moment. The unconscious heaving of your chest right now had its beginning with the breath God. And when it was expelled from his throat a long time ago, life exploded into the universe. In other words, the simple act of breathing is powerful stuff. And it demands that we do something with it. Something extraordinary.
Many people have this monolithic notion about Christianity—that it has been the same since Jesus and Paul walked the earth. But the truth of the matter is that the Church has often changed its mind on what it deems to be the essential elements of faith. One way to look at this is to ask, …
Continue reading "Mere Christianity: What Has it Been And What is it Now?"
This summer I decided to give podcasting a try as another element of this site, so I created, "Professors Talking Skubala." If you are a Greek student, you are probably chuckling to yourself right now. "Skubala" is the Greek word Paul uses in Philippians 3:8 that is usually politely translated, "rubbish," but it actually is …
Spilled Coffee on Ancient Scrolls 