Midway through the book of Daniel, everything changes. Nice, well-ordered stories that have fed generations of Sunday School kids suddenly give way to seemingly bizarre visions with strange imagery and uncertain interpretation. Daniel 1–6 are incredibly helpful for us in that they model a kind of belief in God, a type of posture toward the...
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As a pastor in a local church, I deeply enjoy our weekly practice of walking through the Bible together section by section, book by book, and seeing how the timeless word of God comes alive to our people–that even though we are centuries removed from the original writing of the Scriptures and worlds away from...
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Jesus’ parables are stories Jesus told, stories each with a particular purpose – not disconnected moral fables about how to be better people but rather stories to immerse us in another world, a truer world that he calls the kingdom of God. With each story, Jesus gives us a glimpse into, and helps us perceive...
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In their 2019 book Faith for Exiles, David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock released some data on the consumption of screen media in the lives of “digital natives,” individuals between the ages of 15-23. They found that the average digital native consumes 2,767 hours of screen media each year, the equivalent of 115 days of nonstop...
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After taking the podium as the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) first African-American Moderator on June 13, 2018, Rev. Dr. Irwyn Ince, Jr. gave a brief speech wherein he shared both his excitement to lead as well as his grief that there were so few models to inspire himself and other Black Presbyterians. “For most...
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In his Requiem for a Nun, the poet William Faulkner somberly reminds us that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The persons and events of generations past in many ways are still very much alive, influencing and informing our current dialogues, discussions, and perspectives. Since our understanding of history is so crucial...
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