Grace and Judgment

According to Matthew 6:33, “Seek first kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [material needs] will be added to you.” Simple enough in principle, but just what is this kingdom, and what does it mean to seek it first? Jesus explained the kingdom in a number of parables. Here are three from Matthew 13:24-33. The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a man Wheat plant: notice the bending stalk. A man sowed good seed in his field. Now, this parable comes right after Jesus’...

FN9C6C2CHWG7 When you get home from church, what do you think of God? During the week, do you think of God for a morning quiet time and then hardly at all for the rest of the day? Or, admit it to yourself, do you remember God at all between Sunday mornings? How easy it is to go to church, participate in Sunday morning activities, and have the experience wear off before we get back home. Back to the ordinary. Back to the messages of the world around us. The television ads all try to make us...

Peace rally We all want peace. I’m sure we all really do. But what does it look like? For as long as anyone living can remember, America has been either at war or in serious rivalry with other country. Our government has also operated a long-running Middle East peace process. Is there peace there? Bumper stickers proclaim “Give peace a chance,” and “War is not the answer.” I well remember the unpopular war in Vietnam and attended peace rallies to protest it. What was peace like there? People...

Joshua and the Israelite People / Karolingischer Buchmaler, ca. 840 “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”–Joshua 1:9, NRSV Moses was dead. Joshua was scared. How do I know that? Because the Book of Joshua begins with God giving him a pep talk. Three times during that pep talk, God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. When he got up from there and went out among the people, they told him to be strong and courageous....

“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.” — Philippians 4:11 (NKJV) Isn’t it amazing how the whole meaning of a sentence can change when you shift your main attention from one word to another? Most of the time, preachers and writers seem to emphasize “content” and discuss the meaning an importance of contentment. Once, when I was in a particularly foul mood, I came across this verse and got hung up on “state.” I actually said aloud, “Paul,...

Map of Abram's journey We know Abraham as the father of many nations. Arabs and Jews both claim him as their ancestor. His life story forms the very foundation of the basic Christian concept of justification by faith. He did not start out that way. We first meet him as a name at the tail end of one of the tiresome genealogies that make parts of the Bible so dry: “After Terah had lived 70 years he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran” (Genesis 11:26). How did this Abram grow to become...

There is nothing subtle about how the world operates. We measure power by size. Each industry has one or two dominant and large corporations. The most powerful nations have some combination of the largest economies, international trade, military power, and diplomatic reach. Politicians vie to amass the most money so they can parlay their fundraising in to the most votes. God doesn’t work that way. Just look at how he prepared Mary for her role in God’s sneaky counterrevolution against the devil…