Sometimes you’ll pick up a scholarly article or a legal contract and it will begin with a glossary defining unfamiliar words or technical terms. Some words like love or hate may be used so widely that knowing just what someone means when they say “I love that” is not that clear. If you tried to […]
Author Archives: paulrpurdue
Last Tuesday, after what we church workers call Easter Monday, I looked at my sermon text and I wondered why I laid out a sermon series rooted in First John. Unlike most of the Bible, First John does not tell a story, at least not in a traditional sense with a storyline, plot, and characters. […]
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could anoint Jesus’ body. Just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. They came as soon as the Sabbath laws allowed. Magdalene, Mary, and Salome carried spices, lotions, oils, soaps, and towels to wash Jesus’ bloodied […]
Even before the palm branches are swept from the parade route, Palm Sunday makes a hard pivot into Holy Week The crowds come singing loud Hosannas, lifting up Hallelujahs and praises to Christ our Lord as Jesus rides towards the Temple with the other Passover Pilgrims who walk upward to Zion. Some of the people […]
Last Wednesday, Hunter, Sol, Mercede and I worked on building an irrigation path to divert groundwater away from a home and towards a catch basin. There was not a nice stack of matching concrete pavers from Home Depot but instead a pile of preindustrial stones collected from nearby fields. Each rock had its own size, […]
Mark tells no back stories: no theological images like John, no genealogy like Matthew, and no birth narrative like Luke. Mark begins with John the Baptist. Jesus was about 30 years old, the age when many men got married, when he decided to travel to the Judean wilderness to hear John the Baptist preach. John […]
One Saturday morning, 21 years ago, maybe in March, I was walking through the woods with my cousin, when Tom said, “I’m going to run a marathon for Nathan next January.” He waited and added “Disney is the flattest marathon in the country”. He did not ask, but I felt his invitation. When I said […]
Three acts into the 28 scenes of the Acts of The Apostles, Peter and John land in jail just like Jesus. They were arrested, jailed overnight, and dragged before the same court that crucified Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I grew up hearing that preachers should avoid politics, stay away from trouble and […]
Before doppler radar and phone alerts, we went to church on a cold winter’s night, as we always did. I do not remember who our youth leader was; we had six leaders during my time in youth: Mike, Steve, Greg, Kent, David, and some guy who stayed 3 weeks. I have no idea what we […]
Wednesday night, Gayle graciously allowed me to sit in on her final choir practice. She required that I actually sing and sit according to the seating chart; I did. The yellow laminated placeholder read “surprise guest”. You could feel love, community, and harmony filling the room; grace was palpable. Today, our community stands at the […]
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