The following is the text of a homily I preached earlier this afternoon in a School of Divinity chapel service at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina] John 9 is all about seeing and the inability to see. That’s…
Seeking Jesus is like hunting for Easter eggs
Whenever I hear someone suggest the gospels are pretty much straight forward, I want to ask her or him whether we are reading the same books. There are so many times when reading the gospels, I stop, wondering if I…
What Easter means (and why what literally happened on Easter morning is irrelevant)
What matters most is not what historically happened on Easter morning to the body of Jesus but what the Easter story means. The Easter stories in the Gospels are religious/spiritual/theological stories, not historical reports. That is not to say there…
Reconsidering John 3:16 (A progressive Baptist’s interpretation)
In The Lord of the Rings there was one ring to rule them all. In the Bible if there is one verse to rule them, all it is John 3:16. If one learned just one Bible verse in Sunday school or…
Does loving my neighbor mean I have to be wrong?
Just the facts, ma’am Driving an automobile has been the source of an ongoing life lesson lately, and I’m pretty much ready to have the lesson learned and move on. Last weekend I had taken my son to Miami for…
What made Jesus angry?
In the healing of the leper in Mark 1:40-45 the text reads in the NRSV, “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” There is a footnote that says, “Other ancient authorities read anger.” There are some…
The importance of the images and metaphors Jesus didn’t use
I went back in time this past Christmas. Once again I was a child sitting on the floor working my way through a lego instruction manual building a castle. Only this time the castle wasn’t black, it was light gray…
I did not get an invitation…
Much to my surprise, no one invited me to a recent gathering in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to news stories, hundreds of evangelical pastors attended sessions at the Baton Rouge River Center in order to learn how to run successfully…
You can’t beat an enemy you don’t understand
The recent massacre by Islamic extremists at the Charlie Hebdo office in France has shocked the world. I have my own theories why this particular act of terrorism brought such a show of anti-Islamic extremism solidarity whereas other, much more…