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Meditations on God
Or “Stand in Wander,” part 2 The heart of theology is God Himself. What we believe about God undergirds everything else, and so what we have in common is that much more crucial, and where we disagree can be that much more divisive. As far as I am aware, I hold a very traditional Christian view of God. But this doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes bump into people who disagree with me. I believe God is Trinity, one God in three persons. It is difficult to comprehend and difficult to explain to my kids sometimes, but I don’t believe it because it’s convenient. I accept it as the Bible’s…
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Why I Am Exploring Romanticism
(Note: I usually try to write things that I think might benefit others, but this post is shaping up to be a little more personal, self-indulgent, and reflective. If that’s not interesting to you, don’t tell me, as I shall then have to pretend not to know you.) I’ve been exploring some new trails lately and today I would like to try writing about them. This is in part to collect my thoughts, but also to combat the ever-present urge to wait until you have something better to say. When trying to land on a specialization, venturing someplace new is a risky proposition. Everything is unfamiliar, which is exciting, but…
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A Place Where You Belong
I was provoked in my spirit the other day by some tweets from a person I only began following this year. Sometimes it is important to name names, but I’m not ready to do that at this stage. I appreciate some of what he has to say, and he was recommended by a friend from church. I even have a book he co-authored sitting in my stack of books to be read in the near future. So being new to him, I don’t know if this is his thing or if he’s gone off on a tangent, but there is a reason I don’t think it matters that you know…
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Stand in Wander, part 1: The Bible
Note: I promise not to make a habit of wonder/wander puns. I started this blog as an attempt to free myself to write and build, but apparently the space is not the problem. The problem is me. I have been convicted of late that I have practiced silence for too long. Wisdom suggested it as one conflict after another seemed to indicate peacemaking was in order. There is a fine line between peacemaking and “peace-faking,” as Ken Sande calls it. The past decade has been an increasingly precarious time for relationships, so why make things worse? Why indeed. Well, as a teacher, you really cannot afford to be silent all…
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Submitting to a Sovereign King
This fourth sermon was the follow-up to the last one, delivered the week before. It continued the story of Ahab’s life, and that led into a very difficult topic: God’s sovereignty and our responsibility. This can be especially difficult for Baptists because some of us are Calvinists and other Arminians, and we don’t always know who is who. But this is where the text led, so I tried to do justice. It helped that this was another fascinating story. The audio for this sermon was lost, but you can read the manuscript below. Delivered to First Baptist Church of Mount Pleasant, MI, on 10/19/2014. Prayer Good morning, Father. We lift…