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Rest Requires Faith (or Exhaustion)
The first creation myth in Genesis ends strangely with God’s rest. Of course, in the stories that follow, the Sabbath and observance of the Sabbath often play major roles, and it’s unsurprising that the authors and preservers of Genesis would want to introduce the origins of the Sabbath at the outset. Yet it is odd…
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Putting Things Right
The central assumption of Christianity is that something is wrong with the world, and it needs to be put right. For Christians, the “something wrong” is human sin, a violation of the right order God created at the beginning. Putting things right we call “reconciliation,” and according to Paul it is a ministry belonging to…
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A Glimpse Into How I Read the Bible
I wrote the article below in 1983 when I was in college. We had visiting speakers talking about creation and evolution. It was my view at the time that both speakers mishandled the scripture, using it improperly to “prove” their points. The article was printed in the college newspaper, and I still stand by it.…
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The Curse of Wealth
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” Mark 10:23 Mark 10 tells two seemingly unrelated back-to-back stories. In the first, Jesus’ disciples try to keep children from bothering the Teacher. Jesus rebukes them and welcomes and blesses the children. In the…
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Forward Motion, or the Snail in the Well
There is an old riddle about a snail crawling up the side of a well. It starts 20 feet down and crawls 5 feet up by day but slides back down 4 feet by night. How long does it take the snail to climb out of the well? The riddle reveals the danger of abstract…
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