“Our Father…” (Matt. 6:9) begins the only prayer that Jesus taught. God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen, the God who exists before and beyond time and space Continue reading “Our Father”
Category: Christian
Lose Your Life for God
There is an element of self-centeredness even in our generosity and the good deeds we do.
“Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:24)
Let’s be honest. People are self-centered. It starts from the moment we leave the womb. Babies cry when they are tired, cry for food, cry when they want something: their world is focused on their own needs. As we grow and mature, we (hopefully) become more attuned to others and begin thinking about meeting their needs, at least when they do not conflict with our own needs; but we are still primarily self-centered. Continue reading “Lose Your Life for God”
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My Journey
Stepping out of that myopic existence I began to get an inkling that there existed a world of truth that I wanted to encounter, and so I set off.
It’s time for a little update, not much, but I am no longer new to blogging. I have been at it a few years. Not that I have gained any particular stature. I simply can’t claim to be new at it. I still write as part of my profession, but blogging is more interesting. Blogging is my way of sharpening ideas and fleshing them out. It’s a journey, and I know I don’t always “get it right”, but I take it seriously.
I have been on a journey for truth since I emerged from the haze and confusion of adolescence, much of it self-induced. Stepping out of that myopic existence I began to get an inkling that a world of truth lay in front of me to encounter, and so I set off. I didn’t realize, then, how much faith is required to seek truth.
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Through a Glass Darkly
“We just can’t continue to look into the filter of our politics at our spirituality. It’s got to be the other way around ….” (Spoken by Andy Stanley speaking at Catalyst West at Mariners church, Irvine, CA April 17, 2015 as reported in Christian Post)
Are we, Christians, more identified by our politics than our faith? If it is the former, we have terribly missed the mark.
It may not be completely “our fault”. Political pundits are constantly categorizing and labeling Christians and determining our political leanings. Political analysts and prognosticators are continually defining and redefining Christians and their politics.
But, we do play along and allow ourselves to be pegged by political affiliations and positions and, thus, allow ourselves to be defined by them. We allow ourselves to go with the flow and become indistinguishable from the world around us. Continue reading “Through a Glass Darkly”
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To Bake or Not To Bake a Cake
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I understand a blog post has gone viral around the Internet called “Bake for them Two”. The blogger suggests that, when asked to bake a wedding cake for a gay marriage, Christians should not just bake one; they should bake two, even if they believe gay marriage is wrong. The basis for the blog article is this statement in the Sermon on the Mount: if someone forces you to walk a mile with them, walk with them two. (Matthew 5:41)
The back drop to the short parable is that Roman law required people to carry a Roman soldier’s equipment up to a mile if demanded. Such a request of a Jew in that time of Roman occupation of the Promised Land would have been anathema. It would have been a difficult thing for the religious Jews of Judea to stomach – to help their occupiers by carrying their equipment. The suggestion by Jesus that one should be willing to go two miles if required to carry the equipment for one mile was a radical idea (like turning the other cheek, praying for your persecutors and loving your enemies, which are also part of the Sermon on the Mount).
The Bake for Them Two blogger suggests that the same principle should be applied to the current controversy over wedding cakes for gay marriage. Even if a person believes that gay marriage is immoral, if asked to bake one wedding cake for a gay marriage, we should bake two!
Before I even read the first blog, I came across a video blog (Stand to Reason) in which the blogger questions the idea that baking two wedding cakes is the proper response of the Christian who believes that the union of same sex couples is sin/immoral. The speaker poses these questions: if someone asks you to steal a man’s cloak, should you steal two? If someone asks you to make one pornographic movie, should you make two? Going back to Jesus, who was a carpenter: if someone asked him to make one idol, should Jesus make two?
The video blogger obviously concludes that the Christian should not bake one wedding cake for the gay couple, let alone two. The argument might seem compelling to the Christian who wants to do the right thing and not endorse what is believed to be an immoral act. But does the argument logically follow? Is that what Jesus would really say?
Continue reading “To Bake or Not To Bake a Cake”
Navigating by Faith 