“The purpose of the Psalm was to glorify God. It does that very clearly and very poetically. It reminds us of all that God has done and all that has benefited us throughout the millennia.”
“I wonder who selected which readings to go with which times of which days. The texts are always timely, but sometimes they are like a baseball bat between the eyes.”
“[Jesus’ clues] were still in the Bible when the English landed at Jamestown, the Spaniards took over Mexico and Florida, the French set up their colonies, and any other “Christian” country used a strong-arm kind of evangelism and privilege.”
“To me, it feels as if this day is made for me not to remember the mighty, the company of heaven, so much as the unknown angels in this world, those who work quietly and almost invisibly to help others and to advance the kingdom of God, no matter how hard and how dangerous that particular ministry is.”
“Jesus’s duty and ministry were to save people, not condemn them. That’s not to say that he didn’t give us some idea of who might or would be condemned by God at some point, but only (at that time, anyway,) that he was not the designated one to do that. That was God’s providence entirely.”
“In the case of the persecutions in Cyprian’s time, the choice was to remain faithful or swear allegiance to a god or gods and escape potential death.”
“Like Job, we want to present our case to God as to why this really shouldn’t happen to us, and we wait for an answer that may or may not come – at least with a clarity we want and feel we deserve.”
“We love to build people up only to enjoy equally tearing them down when we discover a flaw in their dealings or their character. Noah, Abraham, David, Paul, and countless others were put on pedestals and then seemingly knocked down.”
“The kingdom of God isn’t a goal to be achieved once I take my last breath. It’s something that is as close as my next breath and as available as God’s grace.”
“Love and friendship have always been components of stories of triumph and tragedy.”