Theology in the psych ward

Zack Eswine, in his book The Imperfect Pastor, page 64: Throughout the Gospels we consistently observe Jesus teaching theology in the midst of the psych ward. He sat his apprentices down in the emergency room, as it were. He introduced them to ghastly sights, grieved sounds, and rank aromas of actual human people in their...

What the Bible is and is not interested in

Eugene Peterson: The Bible isn’t interested in whether we believe in God or not. It assumes that everyone more or less does. What it is interested in is the response we have to him: Will we let God be as he is, majestic and holy, vast and wondrous, or will we always be trying to...

and he went out, not knowing

  "and he went out, not knowing" (Hebrews 11:8, KJV) Last night, our group was studying Genesis chapter 12, and the calling of Abraham. Such a remarkable story, the more you think of it. We were struck again by the radical nature of the call - leave everything, and go to the land I'll show...

Revealing God Where He Already Is

Roland Bainton on Martin Luther's view of communion: "The sacrament for him was not a chunk of God fallen like a meteorite from heaven. God does not need to fall from heaven because he is everywhere present throughout his creation as a sustaining and animating force, and Christ as God is likewise universal, but his...

The necessity of contemplating beauty

Melinda Selmys, from her book Sexual Authenticity: "Beauty is not largely an irrelevant addendum to the life of the soul. It is through beauty that we come to understand the appeal of heaven. The atheist can't get excited about sitting around forever with the big man on the throne. The sexual sinner can't imagine an...

the simple grace of loving

Poet Christian Wiman: "There are other moments, too, which are simply moments of life. Simply! I think of the poet Paul Eluard: "There is another world, but it is in this one." I have 3-year-old twin daughters. It would be disingenuous in the extreme for me to pretend that they don't at times drive all thought of God...

The Benefits of Providence in The Hobbit

At the insistent urging of my wife (who loves all of Tolkien's books) and wanting to read the book before I saw the movie, I finally read The Hobbit this December. It was, of course, great. Reaching the end, I was struck with the book's final lines: "'Then the prophecies of the old songs have...

Making good things more precious still

I've heard that Saint Augustine told a story of a new bride on the morning after her wedding. With the groom lying beside her, she awakes in love, enthralled. But not with the groom. Instead, the morning after her wedding, she falls helplessly in love not with the man but with his most expensive gift....

the air into which we are born

Eugene Peterson, quoted by Carolyn Custis James: "Giving...is the air into which we were born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is. God gives himself. He also gives away everything that is. He makes no exceptions for any of us. We are given...

We see the universe marvelously arranged

  Albert Einstein, quoted here: "We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious...