Tag: Love

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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This past Sunday we wrapped up our teaching series, What Jesus Hated, by switching things up. Instead of talking about something else Jesus doesn’t like, we focused our attention on something Jesus loved. Through a look at one of Jesus’ best-known parables, we looked at love in action and talked about why getting that right matters so much for us. Thanks for tuning in with me this week.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

I’m going to ask you a question to get things started this morning. When I do, I want you to shout out the first name that comes to mind when you hear it. Ready? Won’t you be my neighbor? Now, if you’re at all like me, there are two possible names that rushed to the front of your mind, and one of them is a whole lot likelier than the other. The second one of those names is Daniel Tiger from the PBS cartoon series, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. My kids, but especially Micah, used to watch Daniel Tiger all the time. Secretly, I loved it. Besides its being a fantastic show, the songs they included in each episode to teach some basic moral lessons to kids were like gold. We used them with our kids all the time. You probably only thought about Daniel Tiger, though, if you have had preschoolers any time in the last ten years or so. More likely, the name that came to mind first—as you shared out loud like I asked—was Mr. Rogers. 

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Loving the Hurting

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This week as we continued our series, How to Be Faithful When No One Else Is, we are turning with Daniel’s story in a direction that may be unexpected. When we imagine ourselves standing in faithfulness as the world around us turns away from such a path, we are often tempted to think in very much cultural terms. We imagine ourselves as warriors battling back the forces of evil. Yet being faithful after the way of Jesus looks very different from this. Let’s talk about how and why as we look at another story about a king and a dream.

Loving the Hurting

Let’s do a quick vocabulary poll this morning. This one is definitely a fifty-cent word. How many of you have heard the word “schadenfreude”? Anyone want to throw out a definition or use it in a sentence. It’s actually a really good word to have in your back pocket. It’s probably worth quite a few points in a game of Scrabble. I don’t think I’ve ever actually played a game of Scrabble in my life, so I could be wrong, but it at least has a lot of letters. Schadenfreude, as you might have guessed, is a German word. While a more robust definition is probably available in German, in English it basically translates to taking pleasure at the misfortune of others. We live today in a world where schadenfreude is a common feeling for a lot of people. 

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Something Different

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“Who can find a wife of noble character? She is far more precious than jewels.”

What do you do when you get an all-expenses-paid stay in your master bedroom with your eleven-year-old son for a week? You watch a lot of movies, for starters. The original Jurassic Park trilogy, The Santa Claus trilogy, and the first five hours of the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy so far. You work some as well. And you think. For me, I tend not to think in pictures or ideas. I think in words. And with tomorrow’s being a rather special day…for which I am in quarantine…I’ve done a fair bit of thinking in that direction. Here are a few thoughts that have come from it.

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Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 10:18

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“Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When Paul was offering the Thessalonian believers encouragement when they were struggling with what to think about believing loved ones who had died before Jesus could return, he opened his thoughts to them by saying this: “We do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” His point, in a nutshell, is that he wanted these followers of Jesus to grieve like followers of Jesus and not as those who aren’t followers of Jesus. Grieving without hope is not a pretty experience. What’s more, people who grieve without hope know it isn’t pretty. But they don’t know what to do with it. As a result, they tell stories to make themselves feel better. Yet all of our stories are echoes of God’s great story, which means that the world’s stories about grieving often wind up coming close to the truth. In the latest Thor movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, Marvel offers us yet another example of the truth of this observation. I finally got to see it. Here are my thoughts…and by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, I’m going to fill this with spoilers, so read at your own risk.

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Morning Musing: John 15:9-10

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“As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We hate hypocrisy and people who take up contradictory positions. And this is not without good reason. Seeing someone claim one thing to be true – and in such a way that they are actively seeking to force others to live up to these standards – and then to see them live in such a way as to betray a belief that it isn’t really true is to witness a lie. It is to see someone creating a fantasy world into which they are trying to force others, but in which they won’t live themselves. It’s disgusting. Because this so bothers us, critics of the Scriptures are always on the lookout for hypocrisy and contradictions in the them. As people who would uphold the integrity of the Scriptures, we need to be ready to explain why places like this aren’t examples of it.

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