When we last met, Jesus had encouraged the disciples to return to open water for some fishing, even though they’d just suffered through a fishless night. So, they begin fishing again, and the nets, once empty, are now filled to the point of breaking! “They came and filled the boats, so that they began to… [Read more…]
February 18, 2012
Once upon a time, a guy named Henry lived a very regular life. He had a wife and two kids, an eight to five job that paid the bills, and a small, but comfortable place to live. He attended church in the place he’d known all his life with people who’d seen him grow from a… [Read more…]
February 16, 2012
We begin this story of Jesus encountering the Gerasene demoniac, not when Jesus steps on the shores of the country of the Gerasenes, but in the few verses preceding this incident (cf. Mark 4.39-41). The question still ringing in the air as Jesus steps from the boat is, “Who then is this, that even wind and… [Read more…]
February 15, 2012
We get personalized info on the web, personalized service at stores we frequent, personalized music lists on apps and iPods: why not get personalized medicine? George Church looks to do exactly that. Dr. Church has helped develop the automating of gene-sequencing, something that heralds great advances in the treatment of all manner of things in our… [Read more…]
February 14, 2012
Believe it or not, “[t]he early Methodist meetings were often led by lay preachers with very limited education. On one occasion, such a preacher took as his text Luke 19:21: ‘Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere man.’ “Not knowing the word austere, he thought that the text spoke of an oyster man. He… [Read more…]
February 10, 2012
Many days of my young life my dad would invite me to do things with him. Our “we projects” included many things from animals to auctions to engines to junk. I didn’t always get to do much work, though. I felt like I was just there like a nurse handing tools to a surgeon most the… [Read more…]
February 9, 2012
As we were leaving church one morning, my wife mentioned something in passing about King David as a “big ticket sinner.” The comment started me thinking about how we talk about sin and sinning in our lives. During what we might call “Bathshebagate,” he had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and murdered the woman’s husband, Uriah… [Read more…]
February 8, 2012
“Facts are stubborn things,” the John Adams character says to the jury while defending some English soldiers prior to the Revolutionary War. In the HBO movie John Adams, we find the main character in a courtroom trying to find the facts of what happened that particular night we now know as the Boston Massacre. Despite… [Read more…]
February 7, 2012
Yesterday, we heard about the Israelites not being able to serve God,they just couldn’t make the right choices. We also asked ourselves if we made all the right choices in our relationship with God. Do we think about showing up for God like we should? Well, what if we were really in need, and one… [Read more…]
February 6, 2012
Israel had an interesting go there in Exodus. From the palace to the plagues, from the first Passover to the Red Sea passage, Israel had its way made by the Lord. They weren’t even five (5) minutes out of the Red Sea when they had formed the “Back-to-Egypt Committee.” They whined for water – they got… [Read more…]
February 19, 2012
1