What does Jesus mean when he uses that word heaven? ___________________ First, there was tremendous respect in the culture that Jesus lived in for the name of God—so much so that many wouldn’t even sa...
To name is to order, to participate, to partner with God in taking the world somewhere.
This is one of the reasons we watch movies, attend recovery groups, read memoirs, and sit around campfires telling stories long after the fire has dwindled down to a few glowing embers. It’s written i...
This is because conviction and humility, like faith and doubt, are not opposites; they’re dance partners. It’s possible to hold your faith with open hands, living with great conviction and yet at the...
Third, it is our responsibility to be extremely careful about making negative, decisive,
There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously.
There are more atoms than molecules, but a molecule is more complex than an atom. There are more molecules than cells, but a cell is more complex than a molecule. And so on up the hierarchy it goes, w...
The question, then, the art, the task, the search, the challenge, the invitation is for you and me to become more and more the kind of people who are aware of the divine presence, attuned to the ruach...
The question is: Why have these poems and prayers endured? Why, thousands of years later, do we still have them? And the answer you'll return to again and again is: They speak to our human experience.
The great German scholar Helmut Thielicke once said that a person who speaks to this hour’s need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks those heresies can gain the t...
The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder.17
The failure to understand the infinite depth of the human soul is often why people who are married have affairs. They stop exploring the person they married. They find somebody who appears more intere...
The Psalms show us what healthy spiritual life looks like. You name everything that's happening inside of you. You give it language and expression, You articulate exactly what the desolation feels lik...
The Bible was written by Jewish people who belonged to a Jewish minority living under the oppression of a succession of massive military superpowers who had conquered them: The Egyptians, the Persians...
Selling your house, giving away possessions, working multiple jobs for a period of time, going back to school and moving in with friends or relatives, sharing a car with your partner and riding your b...
Salvation is the entire universe being brought back into harmony with its maker.
People deal with their shadow side in a number of ways, the most common way being to find outside enemies and point to them, demonizing them and blaming them for long lists of perceived evils. This st...
People aren’t static; they’re dynamic—endlessly complex and capable of tremendous surprise and change.
On earth, lots of wills are done. Yours, mine, and many others. And so, at present, heaven and earth are not one. What Jesus taught, what the prophets taught, what all of Jewish tradition pointed to a...
Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.