Preachers and teachers, myself included, frequently talk about how all that you own belongs to God, but most commonly it is in the context of getting more money for a particular church or ministry. Having led a non-profit ministry, I understand the pressures here. So: What if we talked about stewardship not less often, but…
A good book review is not one that says nice things about the book, although nice is nice, so to speak. I occasionally read a positive review that makes me wonder whether the reviewer read the book. There are likewise negative reviews that make one wonder. As a publisher, I must take all these in…
On a variety of subjects I regularly hear about how people ignore the plain teaching of scripture. I’d like to take away the phrases “the Bible clearly teaches” and “the plain teaching of scripture” from conservatives, while taking “we don’t take that literally” away from liberals. Then maybe we could get around to discussing the…
We’re going to talk about process spirituality, Advent, and Christmas. Fun!
Each year I’m saddened and yes, annoyed, by the supposed war on Christmas and responses to it. Every time someone can’t set up a manger scene on public land, or is even forced to share the public space with other groups, there’s an outcry. It’s a war on Christmas! Never mind that there are, in…
Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a great deal about strategy in connection with Christian living. It started when I was invited to preach the Sunday after Veterans Day, which was also the Sunday after the election. I used the first chapter of Colossians to talk about our identity and the means that…
I will review how date and authorship is determined (or not) and how that relates to the way we will answer the question of Paul’s gospel.
I will be dealing frequently with issues of date and authorship while discussing Paul. The reason for this is that there is a considerable variation in what books scholars believe that Paul wrote, so while giving perspectives, I need to deal with the differences in the books attributed to Paul and what picture emerges of…
Continuing … !
When I first set out to join a United Methodist congregation, I asked the pastor for definitive information on United Methodist beliefs. With much trepidation, he provided me with a United Methodist Discipline. I read the first hundred or so pages, not being too interested in the details of the church’s committee structures, including the…
