Category Archive for: ‘All Articles’
Jesus and John the Baptist – by Conrad Gempf
You’re behind the mirror-glass window. There are only two guys in the line-up. They both look kind of foreign and have beards. They’re both wearing those bathrobe-things. The one on the left, holding a card with the number 1, is taller than number 2. Which …
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Weak is the New Strong – by Michael Hidalgo
Jesus was weak. At least according to the way we often think in terms of strength and weakness. Many believe might makes right. The one who is justified at the end of a debate, argument, or battle is the one who is able to silence …
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It is Time! – by Paul Young
There are many of us who believe that the center and source of all existence is a community of self-giving, other-centered love, where there is no hierarchy of power, no hierarchy of value and no hierarchy of respect. Even if you do not believe as many of us do, that Jesus is the incarnation of this self-giving, other-centered God, completing an intention from the beginning of space, time and matter to fully identify with us, you can still believe in the ‘Spirit’ of Jesus; the humility that embraces our common history as humanity, the openness to walking in the eyes of the ‘other’, the risks of searching together for better ways and understandings, the courage to suspend our judgments and prejudices while attacking the darkness that resides in our own hearts.
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World Vision. Duck Dynasty. Global Warming. Noah. Muslims. And, uh….Jesus.
Seems like a lot of folks are mad these days. Just check your Facebook and Twitter accounts if you haven’t noticed.
Growing up, I don’t remember any Christians being mad at anything. We weren’t engaged, and we were happy. Racial issues were for “those people in the South” to deal with. Issues of sexuality were never talked about. Women’s rights were an “interesting discussion” that some folks in New York City were having. And Al Gore hadn’t invented either the internet (so we could follow these bad things) or Global Warming.
Life was good!
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A Poem from my good friend in Basque Country
Glass shatters, sun light flows, a biting wind awakes my soul. I see, after all, that life is light, not sharp clear panes. I took glass for beauty, yet it was the penetrating wind that awoke me to see through, see the view, to see You.
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Answering Donald Miller on the Local Church
Discussing whether or not we should be part of a local church is similar to deciding whether you should call yourself a Christian or not. It’s complicated. Every word depends on what that word means to you, and to everyone reading the word. Descriptors, clauses, parenthesis, disclaimers and every other form of nuance are required, and misunderstanding is still likely.
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Jesus didn’t Teach!
Try this one for an all time great Bible trivia question with someone who knows the scriptures well. “What was Jesus doing in the temple when he was 12 years old and his family left town forgetting him there?”
Never mind the hilariousness of the holy family forgetting Jesus (Luke 2:41-52), or that it took them three days to find him, or that Jesus didn’t seem to mind…or…oh, so many funny things here. But back to the trick question – what was Jesus doing in the temple?
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A Real Man!
This is the first in my series “Who is the Man?” Asking the question of who Jesus was. We can’t fully know who he is now, if we don’t understand who he was then.
He was a man. Duh! you say. Well, not so fast. Many of us grew up in a form of Christianity that highlighted Jesus’ deity and downplayed his humanity. We always said that “he was fully human” but I’m not sure we believed it.
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Who is this Man?
The question for the ages – who is Jesus? It’s my question almost daily as he continues to impress and surprise me. But he also confuses me, annoys me, angers me, encourages me, and in every way…astonishes me. Who is this man?
I’m going to write a series of short blogs on this over the next weeks (as I attempt to write my new book – this is what I do when i have writers block, which is most of the time).
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My New Year resolution for YOU.
I don’t know if this is fair or not. Probably not. Seems that most things I do are not “fair,” so why not make a New Year’s resolution on your behalf. Here it goes. I think you want to know Jesus more. Just a wild …
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