While driving my kids to school in the morning, we will sometimes talk about the Ten Commandments. They will recite to me the first commandment:   “You shall have no other gods before me.” I’ll then ask:  “What in the world does that mean?  What is a god?” And here’s where the Psalms, as noted in […]

Read More Worship and parenting (or: to worship is human, part 2)

What’s the most widely read book of the bible? It’s probably a tie between the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, and the largest book in the Bible, the one in the middle, the Psalms. Why the Psalms?  (Btw, we recently discussed the other book, Genesis, here.) The Psalms are where the faithful can flee to […]

Read More The Psalms, the sacred, and the secular (or: to worship is human)

Monday, due date minus one. I am the driver on-call to take the expecting mom to the hospital.  She lets me go to the gym and throw around some weights in the morning, but I waste no time (with the girly core workout).  I arrive home, shower, and report in.  But only minor, infrequent contractions. “Didn’t you […]

Read More little Julianne Simone

In several places in Paul’s letters he uses a martial metaphor to describe the Christian life. Both words in that phrase–martial metaphor–are important.  First, Paul believes there is a war of sorts.  The Christian life is not merely a game (though Paul can use metaphors from the Greco-Roman games of his day).  The Christian life is not […]

Read More Why we fight

I went on an Eminem trip for a while this past Spring (yeah, I know, he is “so 2000’s”; well, deal with it).  A number of songs have stuck.  Others haven’t. By far his #1 top-selling song (it at the moment has over 764 million hits on YouTube), from his 2010 album Recovery (yes, it was 4 […]

Read More Eminem, Rihanna and the impossibility of relationships

Some students of the Apostle Paul would vehemently deny that he is the originator of that (variously defined) doctrine called original sin.  Whether original sin was original to Paul or not, the 4th-century pastor and theologian Augustine sure thought so.  And it was through the towering figure of Augustine that this and many other doctrines came […]

Read More Pascal on original sin

I’ve been making my way through early Christian texts.  Listen to the description of the early Christians by one Aristides, an Athenian philosopher who converted to Christianity, it seems, in the first half of the 2nd century A.D.: “And their oppressors they appease and make them their friends; they do good to their enemies. And […]

Read More How the early Christians were different

I pray because… 1. I have a lot to confess (Ps. 40): “…troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me” (Ps. 40:12); 2. I have a lot to be thankful for (Ps. 136): “Give thanks to the […]

Read More Why I pray

Think about this: If you were God and you decided to appear on earth in human form to bring about radical, lasting change at the deepest level (i.e., change that would mean the eventual eradication of all injustice), of what sort of demographic would you choose to be?  That is, what nationality, language, education, socio-economic status and […]

Read More The Incarnation in pop culture and poetry

I hit the gym at least twice a week.  It’s a great stress reliever, burns calories, gives me time to think, to hang out with other guys, and, most importantly, to feed my idol of vanity. About 2-3 years ago I started having some minor lower back pain.  I think it was because I was […]

Read More Jesus at the gym: the gospel according to Pilates (not Pilate)