Been away from the blog for awhile because I've been working furiously on my doctoral stuff, but I'm now back on and will be posting from Kentucky and Houston over the next couple of weeks. Even while I've been away from the blog, others have been reading. For example, I got this post recently commenting …
This week's sermon isn't appearing in the blog in text form because I've been trying a new experiment lately with my preaching. Instead of always banging out a full manuscript and elocuting from the pulpit, I've instead been using images and notes on Keynote and wandering around the front of the congregation. Feedback is that …
If the stories in 1 Chronicles look at little familiar it’s because they are. Chronicles was designed as a kind of supplement to the books of 1 and 2 Kings, chronicling the history of Israel all the way from Adam to the Persian King Cyrus the Great. Though the Chronicler uses 1 and 2 Kings …
The Dance of Worship–1 Chronicles 15:25-29 Continue Reading »
Note: Special thanks goes to Dan Carlin and his excellent "Hardcore History" podcast for the inspiration for the opening of this message. Check out the podcast on iTunes or at dancarlin.com. 2 Kings 17:5-20 At the end of the movie Planet of the Apes (the original with Charlton Heston), Heston’s character and his female companion …
We’ve come a long way in our study over the last two weeks so I want to update you on where we are historically. Last week we were going to be talking about Solomon, that is, until the advent of the “aporkalypse”—had to do a sermon on that. We’ll talk more about Solomon when we …
As many of you know, a lot of Park City has been shut down over the presence of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus in our town…well, if one case so far counts as a "presence." At the Health Department's recommendation, we're not holding any "large group gatherings," which includes Sunday worship. But I wrote a …
The Year of the Pig – A Sermon on the Aporkalypse Continue Reading »
When I was back at Asbury a few weeks ago I went out for a run one afternoon and somehow wound up in the town cemetery. I’ve always had an interest in cemeteries, which I guess comes from being a historian. When Jennifer and I were dating, whenever we’d pass a cemetery in Western PA …
We have taken a little detour from our journey through the Bible over the last couple of weeks as we celebrated Easter Sunday. Actually, it’s not so much a detour as a way of peeking toward the end of the book and seeing all the action leading up to the climactic moment through the lens …
The Criteria for a King – 1 Samuel 8:1-22 Continue Reading »
For Michael O’Neill of Middlesbrough, England, death was just a vacation. See, on June 2 of last year, Michael decided to take a last-minute trip to Australia to visit a friend and made his plans without telling anyone. His neighbors, who had seen neither hide nor hair of him for days, grew worried and called …
A Sermon for Easter 2009–Dead Man Down Under (Luke 24:1-12, 36b-49) Continue Reading »
Many of you have been asking about our trip through the Lands of the Bible a couple of weeks ago. It was a great trip filled with breathtaking and important sights (See photo album on the left for pics). This is the second group I’ve taken to the Holy Land and I hope there will …
If you’ve been reading along with us in this year-long sermon series that will take us through the whole Bible, you undoubtedly have started to formulate a list of questions—some of them big questions. And chances are that your questions are some of the same ones that have puzzled scholars, faithful folks, and biblical critics …
Just returned this weekend from leading a wonderful pilgrimage to Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Greece with folks from our church and a few others. Pictures are available for review in the photo album in the left column of the blog. My favorite stops? I loved Ephesus and Corinth especially, standing where Paul stood. Athens was …
I’ve been doing some reading this week in a wonderful book by two British theologians—Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen—entitled “The Drama of Scripture” which I received as part of my next run of books for my doctoral program. I love this book because it gives a pretty concise summary of the whole biblical narrative (might …
The Cure for Death – Numbers 11-21, John 3:14-15 Continue Reading »
Note: This sermon is based on one I wrote for Homiletics back in 2003. We've been reading the Psalms along with the Old Testament lessons during this sermon series, so I took a brief interlude this week to address Psalm 22–a psalm of lament–and how many of Psalms connect the Old and New Testament texts. …
What kinds of rituals do you have at your house? What kinds of routines help life make sense for you? Truth is that our whole lives are full of ritual and I think it’s because there’s an inherent human need to connect the material and the spiritual. It seems to be built into our DNA. …
A Pleasing Sacrifice – Lessons from Leviticus Continue Reading »