If we will face opposition, and the opposition is more than meets the eye, and therefore our capacity to withstand it is beyond us (as we learned from the front half of this passage), what do we have for our wrestling match with what is not flesh and...

Jesus didn’t (and never) minced words: “in this world you will have trouble.” To follow Him is to enroll in a path of anything but least resistance. But part of persisting in the life he’s invited us into is knowing the nature and origin of what...

A discussion of the implications for the gospel would be incomplete without attending to (re)formation of the relationship between children and parents. Both, we’ll find, need each other for different reasons. And both need the gospel to find their...

What does God have to say about where we spend half of our lives? It turns out Sunday’s worship and Monday’s labor are inextricably linked. However, do we operate machinery, change diapers, and teach our students with a biblical view of work, where...

We’ve heard so far how the inward music of the gospel has deeply practical implications for life in general and in the community of fellow believers. We shouldn’t be surprised, and should reasonably expect, that it would have implications for our...

In a so-called secular world where a good life is to be found in what can be observed, quantified, and improved, two words you still hear, both as aspects of a good life, are “mindfulness” and “spirituality.” Though sharply contrasting with their...

Something happens–a glory or a tragedy–and we see the world anew. The experience is as if we’ve been awakened from sleep. We wonder, and perhaps lament, how we came to see and to live like we had for so long. We’ve heard Paul say we’re to “walk in a...

The dancing that captivates your attention is marked by a certain quality within those who dance, subtle and customary as it may appear. Related to the elegance with which they move is a respect–call it reverence–for the dance itself, for those they...

It would probably astonish us to discover how much of what we think, feel, and do is less by choice than by examples we internalized. To appeal to a particular school of thought, we are “expert imitators,” replicating what we see modeled before us...

How do we assess if we are moving through the world, like in a dance, in the way God intends? Specifically, what does it look like on street level to put off the old self and put on the new? We have been trained by religion to pursue impersonal...