My daily lectionary readings for the day included both Ephesians 6:10-24 and Mark 5:1-20. (I get my readings from The Voice.) It’s an interesting combination, because the Ephesians passage is the famous one about the armor of God and thus features in just about any discussion of spiritual warfare, while the passage in Mark, regarding…
This is from the Epiphany 1A lectionary. This passage interested me because of the reference to revealing God’s wisdom to the authorities in the heavenly realm through the church (Eph. 3:10). The reason for this interest is the “great controversy” theme that I grew up with as a Seventh-day Adventist. The foundation for this is…
I try to publish some reflections on each book that my company, Energion Publications, releases. Sometimes it takes me few months after release, but I try to get to it sooner. Please be aware that while I will say some things I might say in a review, this is not a review, and is intended…
That’s a pretty obvious theme, but it would seem even more odd to skip it! The second Sunday in Christmas is a good day to commemorate these events. There are a few different items that strike me here. The connection of the return from exile with the redemptive mission of Jesus. This shouldn’t be surprising,…
In one of the sermons I heard this morning (I attended services at two different churches), the scripture reading was from Ephesians 4:1-12. When Ephesians 4:11 was read, I remembered a discussion I had some time back about whether pastors and teachers here was intended to refer to one group of people. The individual with…
It often amazes me to notice the difference in what I get from the scriptures when I approach a book or a passage simply asking what message God has for me in that passage as opposed to when I search out various passages of scripture in order to answer a particular theological question. That second…
Today as I was driving I noticed a church sign with a message that went something like this: “As a child of God, prayer is like phoning home every day.” Perhaps I’m being too tense about it, but it seems to me that prayer is very much unlike phoning home every day. In fact, to…
