“And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
God’s blessings when we experience them are an amazing thing. Have you known the blessing of God before? Have you experienced the weight of His presence in a hard moment? Have you worn the lightness of His burden when you were deep in the trenches of life? Have you had one of those moments when everything was going right? That must have been something like what Abram was feeling. Read the rest…
“But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
One of the interesting things about this story is that while it appears that Esau forgives Jacob, the rest of the history of the relationship between the descendants of the brothers (the nations of Israel and Edom) reveals that it either didn’t really take, was only skin deep, or more likely that the two had already passed enough bitterness toward each other along to their children that the well was poisoned. Israel and Edom were bitter enemies and the latter was usually the aggressor. Read the rest…
This past Sunday we kicked off a brand new teaching series called, The Big Story. Over the next few weeks we are going to look at the story of Scripture. We often spend a lot of time studying the details of the Bible, and that’s not a bad thing. But if we don’t know the much bigger context in which those details are situated, we run the risk of misunderstanding them. The goal of this series is to help us understand the big story of Scripture more so we can better understand and know the God who is writing it.
A Good Start
Around parts like these where most everybody’s a “from here,” when folks meet someone new there are two primary questions they ask. Anybody know what these are? Where are you from and who’s your daddy? The first question will tell them important things like whether or not you’re a Yankee. It lets them know whether you’re a Tar Heel, a Blue Devil, or some other strange species…like a Jayhawk. It gives them a sense of what kind of culture you bring to the area with you. The second question—especially if you’re not a “come here”—gives them more of a sense of who you are. If your daddy was well-respected in the community, you’ll probably be given the benefit of the doubt in a lot of things. If your daddy was generally considered a scoundrel, though, you’re going to be treated with at least a bit of suspicion whether you deserve it or not. Read the rest…
This past Sunday we kicked off a brand new teaching series called, Marriage Myths. The idea is that when we survey the picture of marriage offered up by our culture, what we end up with is a pile of myths that leave couple disillusioned and, sometimes, divorced. Over the next few weeks we’re going to talk about what some of these myths are and why the truth is so much better. In this first part we begin by laying a foundation of what marriage is and what its purpose is. Keep reading for more…
In the Beginning…
We live in a day in which marriage is on the wane. That’s actually kind of funny if you think about it. Not all that long ago it seemed like marriage was the only thing we could talk about as a nation. The storm of who gets to define what marriage is in the first place along with who is able to be married to whom was intense. In fact, we are still feeling its after effects. The Obergefell decision from the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage may be behind us, but we are still only at the beginning of figuring out exactly what it will mean for our society. The Masterpiece Cake Shop case coming up this term will have a major impact on that question. The irony in this is that some of the most vocal supporters for marriage equality have now come out and revealed that they never really cared about getting married themselves, they just wanted to wreck the thing because they don’t believe it should exist as it does. But, before you jump to hoot and holler at such a person, a few minutes of reflection can fairly quickly bring someone to the conclusion that while you may not agree with them, you can’t blame them all that much for harboring such hatred for marriage. Read the rest…
This past Sunday as we continued our journey in 1 John, A Word on Reality, we looked at both the blessings and the expectations of being called the children of God. The blessings are incredible beyond our ability to comprehend, but we are at the same time called to live up to a standard consonant with our confession. What is this standard? Keep reading to find out. Read the Rest…
The Nexus 