Blog to Start Up Again Soon

Friends, This blog has been inactive for about 2 years. I have been doing things and blogging has been neither an interest nor a priority. Now the time has come for me to get back in the game. I see people still visit here and I’m glad for that. I will be updating links and…

Book Review: The Very Good Gospel

I should state at the outset of my review that I am a white, 46 year-old, educated, public special education teacher who happens also to be a man. I am a Christian and I have bachelors degree in theology and bible teaching and a masters degree in education. I am a public school teacher as…

Book Review: Subversive Jesus

I was almost immediately turned off by this book when one of the first things I saw was a quote by Shane Claiborne. I pressed on because that's the deal and eventually arrived at page 24-25. What I read on those two pages inspired me to press on further: From the time of the murder…

Book Review: The Most Excellent Way to Lead

In today's circles of American Churchianity, leadership is all the rage. There are seminars, Twitter pages, books galore, and so much more teaching us how to be the leaders we ought to be in the world and in the church. Walk into a Christian book store and I'm certain you will find an entire section…

Book Review: One More Step

I suppose the right thing to do, based on the current status of this book on Amazon (95% of the reviews are 5-Star), is to write a favorable, positive review and post it for everyone to read and enjoy. I'm a little late to the game so I feel no particular compulsion to be altogether…

Book Review: Prayer Points

This is a very nice book as far as its aesthetic value is concerned. I like very much the compact size and the faux leather appearance. The cover is also imprinted with a verse of Scripture (Psalm 145:18) and some trees along the spine. The copy I received also contains a small dust cover which…

Matthew 13: Kingdom of God (a sermon text)

I preached a couple of weeks ago (again!) and I decided to use Matthew 13 as my text. I had been doing some light research on the chapter and taught a little of it in my Sunday school class so I took the next logical step and went ahead with a full blown manuscript. It…

Some Thoughts on Mark 1, The Church, and Power

Part 3: What the Church Needs. Now. We've been taking the last Sunday of each month the past couple of months to visit other churches in our area. This, in conjunction with our travels to preach in various churches, gives us the opportunity to see how the Lord is working in our part of the…

Some Thoughts on Mark 1, The Church, and Preaching

Part 2 of 3: What the Church Needs to be Preaching. Now. In part one of this short series of posts, I talked about what I think the church needs to be doing now, namely, preparing the way for the coming of Jesus. By preparing the way, I mean: calling people to repentance. It may…

Some Thoughts on Mark 1, the Church, and Repentance

Part 1 of 3: What the Church Needs to be Doing. Now. Been thinking about church. I do that a lot for some reason. It's not like I have anything else to do with my time. (/sarcasm). The truth is, I'm fairly heavily involved with my local church through helping lead worship (singing, playing guitar,…

Book Review: Surprise the World

Me and a friend have been working our way through some pretty good books. I'm just a little more ahead of him, but he is plowing his way through slowly and making some amazing discoveries in the works of Scott McKnight and NT Wright among others. We have both had our theological worlds shredded–and for…

Advent Day 12: Matthew 12: Something Greater

Read: Matthew 12; Exodus; 1 Kings 1-11 In his short little book simply titled Following Jesus, NT Wright waltzes through several New Testament books and explores their main themes and ideas. Among the books explored is the Gospel according to Matthew. Of Matthew he writes: Matthew's whole gospel is, in fact, a Coronation Anthem. And…

Book Review: Accompanied by the Instruments of David

One day I was scrolling through my twitter feed and this person I follow posted a link to this book. The link said the book was free. I wrote to the person who posted it, never heard back, waited a few days and downloaded the free Kindle version of this book. Turns out the book…

Advent Day 11: Matthew 11: Being Offended by Jesus

In case you don't want to open your book, here's Matthew 11. I have only a couple of thoughts today. After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. 2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah,…

Book Review: Life is______. Forty Day Experience

I know that the popular thing to do when getting free books in exchange for reviews is to write a wildly favorable review that causes readers to swoon and books sales to accelerate. Every time I write a review for one of these publishers, and the review happens to be negative, I sit on my…