A view of a tiffany stained glass window with repeating scale-like tiles in a rainbow pattern, seen from below.

The story of

God and us

2nd Peter (1) Acts (7) Genesis (2) Hebrews (1) Isaiah (1) Jeremiah (1) Job (1) John (4) Jonah (1) Luke (9) Mark (1) Matthew (3) Newsletters (1) Ruth (2)

  • Dominant powers versus ultimate powers

    Dominant powers versus ultimate powers

    Jeremiah 23.1–4; Luke 23.33–43

    It was starting to feeling like maybe, just maybe, the bad guys didn’t have to keep winning. Maybe giants could fall. Maybe, as the Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber says, dominant powers would not turn out to be ultimate powers. The next Halloween, for my work’s costume contest, I dressed up for Halloween as a cell phone…

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  • The things we hold in common

    The things we hold in common

    Acts 2.42–47

    Some translations use the word “generosity” instead of simplicity, and that’s because the word we’re looking at is somewhere between idiom and metaphor in the original Greek. The word is “aphelotes” and its literal translation is something like “the opposite of stubbing your toe.” It’s something you do on accident, without even realizing it until…

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  • By faith,

    By faith,

    Hebrews 11.1–12.2

    For example, there’s this one woman, Priscilla. In the Book of Acts, in the Epistle to the Romans, in the 1st letter to the Corinthians, and in Paul’s 2nd letter to Timothy, she’s described as a colleague to the Apostle Paul, a collaborator, an equal. She even went on to have churches named after her.…

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  • What you get when you sell all you have

    What you get when you sell all you have

    Luke 18.18–30

    One of the most respected dictionaries of ecclesiastical Greek tells us this is often used as a foil to the “fragmentary and frail” life of this world, that it’s something you seek to acquire now as much as in the future. It’s sort of an exchange you make, where you give up attachment to the…

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