PENnED
…before they're washed away
recent posts
- Does God Take People Away? Rethinking Job 1:21 in Context
- Grafted Into One Tree: What Paul Actually Meant About Israel, Gentiles, and the People of God
- When Frameworks Distort Scripture: Learning to Hear the Text Again
- The Obscenity of Misplaced Allegiance
- A Reflection Honoring the Women Harmed by Cruel Abortion Laws
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Category: Reflections on Scriptures
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November 6, 2011 Read: Revelation 1:9-17 “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last” (v.17). What are these comforting and assuring words for? Are they meant to calm John who has just…
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November 5, 2011 Read: John 14:19-27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (v. 27). The peace he gives, Jesus says, is different from the peace the world gives. How is…
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November 4, 2011 Read: 2 Timothy 3:13-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (vs. 16-17). This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. Scripture is useful but it can also cause the Body of Christ…
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November 3, 2011 Read: John 4:1-15 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (vs. 13-14). Obviously the water Jesus offers is not the ordinary h2o you…
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November 2, 2011 Read: Proverbs 15:1-7 There are more stuff in Proverbs 15 than we can handle here. So let’s just focus on the theme verse: “The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly” (v.2). I can’t help it but I automatically imagine a cartoonish image of two tongues: one is lovely, the other…
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Read: Psalm 119:9-16 “How can a young person stay on the path of purity?” (v. 9) Perhaps the psalmist (songwriter/singer?) who wrote Psalm 119, an acrostic psalm, was a young person. But this is obviously not a question that only the youth should ask. Sin is no respecter of age! To the question the psalmist anwers, “By…
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Read: John 1:6-13 I don’t know how those that teach the Bible does not say Jesus is God can miss what the very first verse in the Gospel of John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And the fact that v. 14 says, “The Word became flesh and…
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October 30, 2011 Read: John 8:37-47 Religious? So you think you’re God’s child? Don’t be too quick in congratulating yourself! The Jews that Jesus was talking to were religious but Jesus did not think they were God’s children. Instead, Jesus said they were actually children of the devil! No wonder they were plotting to kill him.…
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Read: Matthew 22:34-39 We are to love God with our whole being–‘all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ But Jesus did not stop with the first and greatest. Why? Because you cannot have one without the other! To love God is to love neighbor. 1 John 4:20 reads, “Whoever claims to…
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Christians’ attitude toward and support or non-support of Israel is in general determined by their understanding of Israel’s role in God’s redemptive work and in particular their interpretation of God’s word to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 (NIV): 1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to…
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I don’t normally use a “motherly” theme for Mother’s Day. But, for a change, I thought I would use one. But texts that speak about mothers are rare.
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In churches where people easily believe, skeptics may sit quietly…unnoticed. In those rare occasions when they express skepticism, they are often rebuked: “Why can’t you just have more faith?” People give them a certain look—the one that says, “What’s wrong with you?” But is there really something wrong with them?
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What a dark moment for Mary. Yet it is in her deep moment of darkness—when she could not recognize the face of the person standing behind her—that she hears the voice of the flesh made Word speak her name: “Mary.”
PENnED 