Simple and not so simple thoughts

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and…

In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus gives us a parable, which I dissect here because it is recorded to make an impact within us. It is good to know that in the remainder of Luke 13, we find Jesus explaining God’s yearning for his people, that there is a way to salvation, and that healing is available for…

Imagine yourself a fisherman by trade. You’ve had a long and disappointing night where you brought back nothing. You’ve got your boat in the dock and are working on cleaning everything up so you can head home and get a little sleep. A stranger walks down the dock and boards you boat while you are…

Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed! Truth springs up from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven. Psalm 85:10-11 I often hear that the God of the Old Testament is all rules and judgement, wrath and vengeance. No doubt there is plenty of warfare and intrigue to be…

There is a lot of talk in Christian circles about the idea of worldview. Worldview is the lens through which you see everything around you. Just as it is hard to convince a blind person he or she needs a particular piece of clothing based on the color of the fabric, so it should be difficult…

I have often heard that notion that if I do more “good” than “bad” then I have accomplished a life well lived. How does one make sense of such an argument? Is a car good if it breaks down at least one fewer day than it gets you to work. We would agree, no. A…

I continue to be impressed at how new the Bible can be to its reader. Having read through a number of times, and sometimes slogged or trudged through might be more accurate, I have found periods when it is like I can finally read whereas before I was looking at some unknown language. At these…

God is an architect. He has quite a portfolio. He designed an ark. and an ark not to mention a place to put the ark (the second one, I mean). Oh, and later when folks wanted an upgrade he handled that as well. Not too shabby. God – Architect.

The beginning of Psalm 19 is what I think of as an ultra-popular set of verses and is a plain statement that God’s glory is evident to all people without any doctrine, scripture or teaching. It is refreshing to believers who can step aside from the madness of the world and be reaffirmed in the…

Forgive what could turn out to be a bad analogy, but reading Psalm 2 brought to mind the Galactic Empire run by Darth Sidious and Darth Vader in the popular fiction Star Wars. It is a short Psalm and I will not quote it here in full but please take a few moments to read…