If God is the creator, and human idolatry is our attempt to manufacture something that can take his place, then the fact that those idols are reflections of their maker – us! – completely undermines their ability to rescue us. Instead, God promises his...
John the Baptist, in prison and about to die, struggles to reconcile his current experience with his prior beliefs about Jesus the Messiah and the imminent arrival of his kingdom. Jesus, however, reminds John of who he is and what he does, encouraging John to trust...
Isaiah promises Judah that God is committed to his project of redeeming them, and the guarantee that God is able to fulfill this promise is that as creator he is wiser and greater than all humans and thus alone is able to accomplish what he sets out to do. Readings...
Happiness is vitally important to the human experience, but in spite of our culture’s conviction of the primacy of happiness, and in spite of our culture’s current ability to easily acquire those items and experiences we all are convinced have the ability to make us...
Even though the neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed much of Israel and Judah by chopping down the tree of the Davidic kings, God promises in Isaiah 11 that a shoot will come up from the severed stump; specifically, a man who will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to put down...
Judah was devastated by Babylon's conquest, but in the resulting exile God promised them that while earthly kingdoms come and go, his word would stand forever. This word has been preached to God's people by prophets who have announced that God is planning to...
The beginning of advent marks the turning over of the Christian calendar, a calendar which – like all calendars – gives order and meaning to our actions. Specifically, the first coming and second coming of Jesus – which Advent celebrates –...
God liberates the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and establishes them as his own kingdom, and calls it good. But even though the Christian church of Paul's day lives under the tyrannical rule of the Roman Empire, Paul calls on God's people to give...
The modern west holds that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that this enlightenment principle of human liberty is “self-evident.” But this deistic idea of God-created principles of freedom which are...
In Colossians 1, St. Paul powerfully describes Jesus as the one who made everything, sustains everything, and controls everything; but on top of that, Jesus is also the one who is determined to win his creation back to himself by redeeming his humans and his world by...
