The UmBlog

source Luke 16 The Message (MSG) The Story of the Crooked Manager  1-2 Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’  3-4 “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do . . . then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’  5 “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ “The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’ 7 “To the next he said, ‘And...

I want to start with a long quote from this 13th century mystic. It can be read online here , but the physical book is a worthwhile purchase. I will quote this in full, because it's the struggle in my own faith journey to letting go and letting God. Someone imagines that he can rid himself of his negative qualities by means of his own labor and striving. When he struggles and makes every effort possible only to be disappointed, God says to him, "You thought it would come about through your own power and action and effort. That is the law I have established, that is, that whatever you have you should expend it in My Way -- only then does My grace arrive. "We say to you, 'Travel this infinite road with your own weak legs.' We know that with your weak legs you will never be able to accomplish the journey -- in a hundred thousand years you would not complete even one stage of the journey. But when you make the effort and collapse and fall down, unable to take anoth...

Dear Johnboy The extremist Islamic partisan group ISIS, has made headlines for their wholesale slaughter of infidels, defined by them as anyone who does not share their strain of religion. The headline above those headlines is their treatment of captive women and children who are enslaved either for labor or for sex. Here is a first person account in the Washington Post of a 14 year old Yazidi girl  who was captured, enslaved, and rescued. Here is a video and story in the Daily Mail of ISIS fighters discussing the purchase of captured girls and their prices. Here is a CNN story with  ISIS's theological justification for the treatment of captured women. Nauseating, isn't it? As you know from your history reading, ISIS's behavior is not unique to conquering armies. Unfortunately, their behavior is biblical. But then, not everything biblical is Christian . Here is the biblical case for the capture and enslavement of human beings. When Israel is not attacking citie...

I finished 2 Chronicles today in my big, fat Lenten Bible reading . I'm surprised how much I liked it. As I said yesterday , the Chronicler is a generous historian, sort of like a proud grandparent, like when they brag on the kid working successfully toward retraining at a new trade without mentioning that the previous trade was stealing cars, and the retraining occurs in the laundry room at prison. The Chronicler, unlike the Kings historian, focuses on the southern kingdom kings. The northern kings only show up as occasional foils or stumbling blocks for the southern kings, those who are David's descendants. It's not only good news, but if there is any good news to report, it's reported. Any reform movements are celebrated and hyped up. Hezekiah 's reforms are a big deal. Coincidentally, or not, Hezekiah's story is bigger in 2 Chronicles than in 2 Kings. As far as Hezekiah was extreme in his religious devotion to Yahweh , his son, Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:1), ...

Not really. Sorry. I'm a swinger when it comes to these positions. I'm really grateful that the church fathers never decided that this topic was at creedal level, like that of God's triunity and Jesus's simultaneous full humanity and full divinity. I'm glad I'm saved by grace through faith and not by my ability to discern the debates in evolutionary science.

One of our other discussions at our high school Bible discussion group as we finished up the Gospel of John was about John's other #humblebrag, the title "the disciple whom Jesus loved" which he uses twice in the last chapter 21:7 and 21:20. The students enjoyed piling on John a little bit for that. But then I asked them, are their any disciples Jesus doesn't love? If not, aren't all of us who believe on Jesus and try to follow him disciples whom Jesus loves? That is so cool. Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times a few nights before the events of this last chapter. Perhaps his leap of faith into the lake that he may have hoped would have been a walk instead of a swim ( see the last blog post ) was an attempt to prove to Jesus how much he did believe him, despite his lame showing at Christ's trial. That didn't pan out. He probably felt even more ashamed when he finally got to the beach with Jesus. Jesus knew that Peter was ready to restore his rela...

First off, if you don't know who the Bad News Bears are, go read about them here . In summary, they are a Little League team of losers who gain hope and start to win. My premise is that every religious or philosophical team is a team of losers. But, because we are in teams, we support each other and tease the other teams, even if our coach wants us to recruit other losers to our team. Personally, by similar analogy, I can't imagine someone trying to convince me to become a Duke basketball fan. I hate Duke. And I'm not alone . Also I'm a UConn Husky fan and was there when Laettner ended our first NCAA run. Wait, I need to cool off.... I don't hate people who like Duke, I just hate the Duke basketball concept. So I can relate to this atheist's feelings towards Christians . The “hate the sin, love the sinner” line, especially when used in connection with LBGT rights, infuriates me. So now I just copy and paste the comment below. It always seems to piss th...

Last year we took a family vacation in Lancaster County about the same time this book, Growing up Amish by Ira Wagler, came up as a pre-pub review option. I heartily recommend the Old Summer House we stayed at, and I was so intrigued by the culture we visited that I really wanted to get into this book back then. But I was too late, all available copies were claimed, and I put the book on my Amazon wish list. But I didn't get to it until it recently showed up on sale on Amazon's Top 100 Kindle titles. I'm glad I did.   Ira Wagler is not a Lancaster Amish but was born in Canada, to an Old Order Amish family that had relocated from an Indiana Amish town. He enjoyed his childhood, but not the religious cultural restrictions. His older siblings also had difficulties and left the community to the shame of his father, an influential writer in Amish circles. So he relocated the family again to another community in Iowa. But the change in scenery, did not address the heart iss...

I took the family to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader before Christmas last week and we greatly enjoyed it. The movie had significant differences from the book , but I'm not a purist, so it was fine by me. One part at the end of the movie, which was not in the book, that I enjoyed is a quote from Prince Caspian on the shore of Aslan's country . He longs to cross over to be with his father, who might be in Aslan's country, something Aslan will neither confirm nor deny. But it's an irrevocable choice. The gallant mouse, Reepicheep , decides to go for it, but Caspian muses, and my quote is very loose, I have spent my life fighting for what I don't have instead of enjoying what I do have . Caspian is speaking of finding his father, but it made me think of the older brother in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son , see Luke 15:11-32. When the prodigal son returned to his father, who celebrated, the older son complained, that he worked so hard for his dad and never...

As I've been re-learning about the grace of God, yesterday and Friday , I'm more alert to those occasions when God's grace jumps out at me, like this morning while I walked the dog. Like every morning, I pray through Jesus's prayer from Matthew 6. I blogged through this prayer, link summary here , three years ago. But this morning, I was stopped in my tracks by the end of the prayer, after we ask for God to forgive us as we forgive others . After we repent, Jesus tells us to ask our heavenly Father to lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one , Matt. 6:13. This prayer I have prayed for years says simply and profoundly what I'm relearning. Repent and ask for deliverance. The prayer is not, repent and try harder, but repent and ask Dad to protect us from the things that entangle us and the enemies who try to destroy us. I agree with the band Skillet , that sometimes the evil one is myself. They have a great song on their latest CD called Monste...

I confess, I am legalistic. It's one of my favorite sins. It's not my favorite in that I'm unashamed of it, it's my favorite in that it's one of my "go to" sins. Rules are not squishy. They are hard and inflexible. They don't change. Perhaps that's why I like the rules, it's my favorite way to deal with change. However, the idol of legalism is cold. Living with it is like trying to snuggle an teddy bear made of polished marble. I can't put my head down on it and rest. There is no comfort in the rules. The rules also do nothing in helping me overcome those things that I'm doing wrong continually. Two recent posts on the blogs on grace revealed my legalism and then gave me hope. The first post came a couple weeks ago from Jon Acuff, who writes about grace all the time, even though he claims to be making humorous observations about Stuff Christians Like. I will quote the end of it, then my reaction to it. “Logic can beat sin.” I wish tha...

I've been thinking about the Bible. I tend to do that.  I've been thinking about the heroes of the Bible. I define heroes as the ones who are mentioned repeatedly in the children's Sunday lessons. When my kids get to grown-up church, they will learn how much those heroes sucked. This is partly why we are reading through the Bible as a family. They need to know there is only one hero.  God.  God is the one who constantly has to swoop in and rescue these losers. That's the thing. He always does. What makes God the hero is his grace and mercy.  Our best efforts to please him are no more than fingerpaintings he hangs on his fridge. We tend to run out of his house and jump in the mud and get covered in poison ivy and ticks and end up getting stuck in a thorn bush, and he is the one who is right there as soon as we cry for help. He brings us inside and cleans us up and washes us and heals us and puts band aids on us and kisses our boo-boos and puts new clothes on us. Most of ...

Our church invited a repentant sinner to speak of the grace of Christ at our Easter service. Connecticut's previous governor, John Rowland, was a like rock star in the Republican party. He was young and charismatic and he was corrupted. In fact, he resigned in disgrace and spent almost a year in jail. But before he resigned, he submitted his life to Jesus. Now he tells a story he calls " a fall into grace ."  His story was short.  However, the commenters at the local newspapers' stories can't accept the scandal of grace. See them before the are taken off line at the New London Day and the Norwich Bulletin . Also notice what each reporter considered worth reporting.

A YWAM friend pointed me to this video of "Highlights of a memorial service held for the Youth With A Mission staff members who were shot and killed on December 9, 2007. This 14-minute video is an inspirational celebration of their lives and a powerful message of forgiveness and hope."

my kind of guy... Rich and the Ragamuffins seemed tired and road weary during the concert that night. I have performed enough to know that after a couple of weeks of back to back shows, you aren’t sure if you’ve said this or sung that to this group of people or not. Regardless, I was warmed by the experience and felt God touch my heart during Rich’s show. But, to my surprise, it was not his lyrics, his instrumental expertise or personal stories that touched me; in fact, I don’t think he said much at all between songs that night. Rather, I was stricken by an awareness of Rich’s frailty, his honesty and humility. Before us stood a guy with no pretences and no agenda. He did not try to sell us the gospel, his latest cd or convince us of anything that he believed, he only sang of how he had experienced the person and path of Christ in the midst of his struggle to find a place for his humanity. As was usual, Rich was not concerned about his appearances, for his hair was still wet from a pr...