I was reading a news article the other day about another country in which a criminal case was to be settled according to the maxim “eye for an eye.” I started thinking about the scripture in Matthew 5:38 where Jesus says “You have heard it said an “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a […]
Making Sense of the Reformation
The Reformation was a wild and tumultuous time in European history. It was a time when many different groups of people pulled away from the power and control of the Roman Catholic Church. Previously in the year 1054, the Church (then called the Holy Catholic Church–Catholic meaning “universal”) split off into two main groups, the […]
THE TRINITY
If you’re anything like me, when you hear the word “Trinity” you probably can’t help imagining the opening scene from the Matrix (1999) when actress Carrie-Ann Moss a.k.a. “Trinity” dodges agent Smith in a physics-defying scene, leaping between rooftops, flying through the air like a missile and then disappearing in a phone booth just as […]
REVOLUTIONARY SUBORDINATION
If you’d like to be wildly unpopular at dinner parties or other social events, try bringing up a scripture passage such as Ephesians 5:22-24 without first explaining that you don’t agree with such ideas. This will certainly earn you some immediate “stink eye” as they say in Hawaii, and it may also end up starting […]
HOW DID THE BIBLE YOU’RE READING COME TO BE?
I was sitting on a cold, hard, wooden pew of a small brick and mortar baptist church, somewhere in the Midwestern United States, asking myself why the people in the choir wanted to wear funny robes and sing in unison in front of a crowd? Why did the man in charge come out and dunk […]