With People long to be known. Otherwise, why would we put ourselves out there time and time again? Why would we bother to attend parties with strangers? Why would we carry on in relationships in which conflict is often present? And why would so many people seek connection on social […]
Finding Our Place In an article in Forbes, Christine Riordan recalls a film entitled, Trouble With the Curve. In it, “Clint Eastwood plays a long-time baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves who discovers a high-school hitting sensation. [Eastwood’s character] comes up against a young fellow scout who uses statistics to […]
The Inheritance That God Has Prepared Colossians 1:9-14 and Hebrews 12:1-3 Have you ever showed up for something that you were completely unprepared for? I can still remember a conversation with my maternal grandfather. He was visiting my family from out of state, and he arrived at my high school […]
Planning for the Future Psalm 107:1-9, 43 and Luke 12:13-21 Folks were always trying to triangulate Jesus – to bring him into the midst of a personal disagreement with the hope that he would serve as an arbitrator. And in today’s second lesson, we find yet another example of that. […]
Trusting in the Promise Luke 12:32-40 and Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 “In the Luther Bible, the German translation of ‘kingdom’ is Reich.” [1] Fast-forward hundreds of years following the Protestant Reformation, and that same word, Reich, takes on a far more sinister tone among the German people. As a result of […]
Praying for Something Psalm 85:6-13 and Luke 11:1-10 As the sun was setting one evening, my parents pulled their car into the driveway of some friends they knew from church. My brother, who is six years older than me, was visiting our grandparents. I was just 18 months old at […]
In Search of Wisdom Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 and Luke 10:38-42 Sooner or later, every parent with more than one child will hear these words: “Mom and Dad, you won’t believe what my sibling just did.” As soon as these words are spoken, experienced parents know exactly what is coming next. […]
Wherever You Go Psalm 72:11-15, 20 and Luke 9: 51-62 In 1927, a storm sewer line was installed here in Akron beneath what was then known as Tallmadge Parkway. Over the next three decades, the pipe deteriorated badly while the problem went undetected. News reports from July 21, 1964 state […]
Like He Was Overrun by an Army Selected Verses from Psalm 42 and 43 and Luke 8:26-39 In our second lesson this morning, Jesus is in a foreign land. We know that he’s among the gentiles when pigs, ritually unclean animals, are mentioned. And here, in the land of the […]
We Hold These Truths Romans 5:1-5 and John 16:12-15 On July 4, 1776, the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America read as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, […]