All social and governmental entities require a document that communicates the fundamental principles around which they choose to govern themselves. The revolutionaries of the New World knew they needed a way to articulate their vision for their embryonic society, some purposes and parameters for how they and their descendants were to live together. Every commonwealth …
Good News to Broken Weeds and Burned Out Wicks
I wrote this in 2015. With all the Broken Weeds and Burned Out Wicks these days I thought I’d repost it.
One of my favorite things is to preach good news about Jesus on the street. Frankly, I’m not super good at it. I’m not trying to be humble, I just know that there are others better suited for this particular task. Nevertheless, I love doing it because it feels so right to bring hope to hopeless places.
Pretty much everyone agrees that the Tenderloin is the most hope-deprived neighborhood in San Francisco. It’s kind of the last stop for people who’ve passed through all the less degraded places in the City. Most everyone here sleeps in doorways, in overcrowded shelters, or SROs (single room occupancy) slum hotels. Hope moved out of these streets of addicts, alcoholics, dealers, and mentally disabled long ago.
These are not necessarily people whose dreams have shattered. Most of them came into this unkind world with no dreams to begin with. Sometimes; after hearing their lifelong…
View original post 1,266 more words
No Shortage of Seed to Sow
The Spirit is anything but stingy with solicitations. His mailbag overflows as he distributes clues of the Father’s love, whose default is to include rather than exclude people from his family. Jesus overpaid for as many orphans as would come home with him. And he doesn’t care which orphanage in which he finds them! Conveying …
Who’s Willing?
“In the districts of Rueben there was much searching of heart. Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks? … Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. And Dan, why did he linger by the ships? Asher remained on the coast and stayed in his coves.” Judges 5:15-18 This passage is …
The Stubborn Lover
Most Bible students are quite familiar with the Greek terms in the New Testament for love. The most prominent of them is “agape,” which denotes unconditional self-giving. It’s this kind of love that God displays to us, deposits in us, and demands of us. It’s the ultimate unselfishness, the deepest regard for another, even when …
