No servant is greater than his master, Jesus tells us. What does a genuine servant’s heart look like? Where is our obedience liable to misshapen motivation? How is the gospel of God’s sheer grace meant to reshape motivations of our heart?

A dinner gathering is always more than the meal served; it’s as much, if not more, the company and conversation. In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus had more truth to share at a dinner table than perhaps even in the Temple. But His lessons on...

It may be the most familiar parable of Jesus. How do we hear this story of mercy--mercy from a most unexpected source--so that our familiarity doesn’t diminish its poignancy to us? Jesus confronts both prejudice and callousness while underscoring the...

Stories both shape and reflect our deepest beliefs. Some of Jesus’s most potent words were not three point sermons, but vivid stories he called parables – each with their own point but all in service of telling a single Story. What Story do His many...

All of our lives are built upon something in which (or in whom) we find our hope, balance, satisfaction and security. In our personal kingdoms those house-foundations are naturally those things around us, which we desperately try to control...

As Jesus approaches the end of his sermon, he has some sobering words of caution to give to his hearers. Specifically, Jesus warns against the appearance of faith (ex. “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”) when in fact there is no genuine relationship with...

Every sermon is out to clinch a goal. Jesus nears the end of his by making sure all who are listening to him reckon with the significance of really hearing him. His words are life. We dare not take them as anything less.

As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Starfleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes...

There was a time when you had absolutely no trouble asking for anything. As we “mature” we are able to do what we once depended on others for. But maturing as a person doesn’t mirror maturing as a follower; asking for much would appear to be the mark...

A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the...