Sometime in high school, feeling my adolescent bravado, I started calling my dad, “the cheapest man on the face of the earth”. I could tell a lot of stories to illustrate this, but when we ate out, and we rarely ate out, no matter where we ate out, dad slowly opened the check, shuttered, and […]
Tag Archives: Moses
Over the next few weeks we are asking, “What If The Bible Is Still Good News?” Last week, we considered how different lenses can help us navigate the different types of literature we encounter in the Bible: parables, poetry, personal letters, and people’s stories. We remembered that 48 of the 66 Bible books are named […]
We have two children. One majored in engineering. The other majored in theater, with a minor in Music, in Appalachian Studies and in Political Science. One lives in a tiny cabin at Cedar Crest Camp surrounded by 500 acres of woods. One lives in a Huntsville neighborhood with his wife, Jillian, a goldendoodle and two […]
What has nourished you? What has carried you to this place where you now stand? If I was to think of a symbol of what fed me as a child, I could place a mason jar of homegrown green beans on the altar. Every summer, we picked bushel baskets of beans at the family farm, […]
“A new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph.” Do you remember Joseph, the dreaming youngest child of Jacob and Rachel? Jacob lavished Joseph with fancy gifts like a multi colored dinner jacket. Every now and again Jacob sent Joseph to check on his older brothers as they camped out in the […]
God’s calling of Moses is shaped by forces that fit our moment: me too, immigration, and racial tension. Do you recall Moses’ story? Remember how Moses’ ingenious mother defied Pharaoh’s genocide by weaving a little ark? Or how an Egyptian princess drew the beautiful child’s basket out of the Nile River? And how Miriam, hiding […]
As we traveled to visit family over the holidays, we drove past a church camp I went to for several summers. Connie asked about the camp and as I reflected on my experiences, I realized part of my journey away from biblical literalism began as a college intern at camp. Everyone is on a journey. […]
What are your everyday ethics? What metrics guide your daily living? Paul’s letters often offer little passages dedicated to everyday ethics. You might think of these passages as “Checklist for Christian living,” or “Christian Rules to Live By” or a “Jesus’ daily metrics” Our passage in Romans’ 12 revolves around Jesus’ Great Commandment Part B: “Loving […]
…. God judges a nation by its principles not its power. National greatness does not come from fire-power or economic clout but from ethics. Our high minded American forefathers looked to principles as our national foundation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by […]
pastorpaulpurdue 