Category Archives: Matthew

Kingdom at Hand

Matt 4:12-23

A sermon preached at Ginter Park Baptist Church, Richmond VA 1/26/2020

Confusion: Rights or Love

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Cor 14:33 RSV)

Last week’s blog included the sentence:  “Let the cacophony begin.” It has.

I have not intended to focus this blog on politics, but, like Moses’ experience with the burning bush, the current din of confusion in the political realm beckons me to turn aside to listen.  When I do, I hear that a significant component of the confusion involves the mistaken identification of national interests in self-protection with Christian motivations. Continue reading Confusion: Rights or Love

A Post-Memorial Day Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer

Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4

Memorial Day always elicits in me a sense of profound gratitude mixed with deep sorrow, the sentiments appropriate for prayerful contrition.  Wars are tragic, irrefutable evidence of human courage and human evil.  Memorial Day calls for gratitude and repentance.  The Lord’s Prayer came to my mind repeatedly Monday.  This blog will offer a brief reflection on Continue reading A Post-Memorial Day Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer

“In whom I am well pleased”

Mark 1:11; Matt 3:17; Luke 3:22

As I write, it is Tuesday of Holy Week and the world seems to be coming apart all around me – terrorism in Belgium, turmoil in American politics, and troubled people on every horizon.  People want political answers to what they perceive to be political threats; they want forceful measures to deal with destructive forces.  People are angry and afraid.  Can

Continue reading “In whom I am well pleased”

“Outside Agitators”

In the previous entry in this blog, I argued that the most profitable approach to reading prophetic literature involves a variety of “pattern recognition.”  Yesterday, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I took the opportunity to re-read Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, and the concluding chapter of his

Continue reading “Outside Agitators”

Christmas Prophecy

Christmas disturbs me this year.  Usually, I hear in the Christmas story the announcement that the prophetic insight encapsulated in the phrase “Immanu-el (Hebrew, “God is with us”; Isa 7:14; Matt 1:23) has found ultimate expression in the birth of a child. Christmas usually reminds me that God wants communion with human beings, created in God’s image, to such a degree that God was willing come to us as an infant child.  Christmas usually reminds me that we do not have to speculate about the character of the God, mysterious and majestic, who created the universe.  Instead, God so desires to reveal

Continue reading Christmas Prophecy