Morning Musings: 1 Corinthians 15:35-36

“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised?  With what kind of body do they come?’  You foolish person!  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The whole idea of the resurrection is a big one.  It’s a huge one.  It’s beyond what we can really understand.  We get resuscitation.  We get reanimation.  The latter is a pretty popular pop culture genre right now.  But resurrection?  That’s something new.  At least, it was in first century Corinth.  So, naturally, people who were culturally trained to be skeptical of theologies and philosophies that seemed to glorify the material over the spiritual as the Christian doctrine of the resurrection seemed to do began to ask some hard questions.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Psalm 102:12

“But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

In last Friday’s Morning Musing we saw the psalmist here pouring out his heart to God from out of a place of utter desperation.  His world was falling to pieces and it felt like even God Himself had abandoned him.  Now, while there are a couple of psalms that end there in the darkness, most of them make a turn at some point.  Here we find the turn for this one.  Everything was falling apart and it seemed life itself might be ending, but…   Read the rest…

A Call to Action

As we continue in our series, A Word on Reality, this past Sunday morning we looked at John’s call to make loving one another something that goes beyond being merely a slogan we claim, to an essential part of our identity in Christ.  Read on for more…

A Call to Action

Have you ever seen or worn a t-shirt with a slogan on it?  I suspect you have.  I had one in high school that my folks recently dug up in one of their closets and mailed to me that read: “The football team will be performing before and after tonight’s featured performance of the marching band halftime show.”  It featured a picture of a trombone slide piercing a football.  Now, if you’re a football fan or player you may be rolling your eyes, but I’m comfortable admitting that I was a huge band nerd in high school.  Also, our football team was awful.  And with over 200 kids in the marching band, for most home games our parents easily made up the biggest percentage of the crowd.  So yes, the crowd really was mostly coming to the game just to see the band.  Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Chronicles 16:7, 10

“At that time Hanai the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, ‘Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. . . .Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in the stocks in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this.  And Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at the same time.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Asa’s is really a sad story, but one that is repeated far too often in the lives of the people around us.  Nearly all of his life he sought the Lord faithfully and the nation prospered for it.  God led him to achieve incredible victories that would not have otherwise been possible.  He elevated the spiritual lives of the people and the spiritual climate of the nation.  He was a king in the model of David in nearly ever way.  Until he wasn’t.   Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 14:34

“…the women should keep silent in the churches.  For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

See, I knew it!  Paul is clearly a misogynist.  He wants women silent and in the back, or better yet, barefoot and in the kitchen.  The church of Paul has no real place for women to become fully who God always intended them to be.  We need something fresh and new with feminism at its heart in order for both men and women to find the place God has for them.   Read the rest…