Category Archives: Ruth

No Stream without a Source

Part II

In the most recent entry in this blog, I reacted to Brent Strawn’s, The Old Testament is Dying: A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment by offering reflections concerning factors that may contribute to the phenomenon Strawn describes.  This second entry on the subject will examine some of the dangers for believers and for the church inherent in Continue reading No Stream without a Source

What the world needs now is hesed, sweet hesed…

Matt 5:44-47

I “love” chocolate and I “love” my wife.  Clearly, the word “love” is almost too multivalent to be useful sometimes.

Two days ago, my phone rang at just after 5pm.  It was my youngest son.  He began, “Dad, I’m OK, but….”  My heart sank to my stomach, my pulse quickened, my mind simultaneously imagined possibilities and braced to hear the actual.  He had been rear-ended by a tractor-trailer truck at highway speed on the interstate; his car had rolled and Continue reading What the world needs now is hesed, sweet hesed…

Biblical Humanism

“The world come of age is more god-less and perhaps just because of that closer to God than the world not yet come of age.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter dated 18 July 1944

Years ago, when I was interim pastor of a small church in Tennessee, a woman in the church stopped me in the hallway between Sunday School and worship to ask for prayer.  I am terrible with names, so, anticipating that she had news of illness, death, or difficulty in the life of a church member, family member, or friend, I took out the note pad I kept in my Continue reading Biblical Humanism