Picture by Patrick Murphy Death and resurrection cannot be separated. This is so obvious it seems like a platitude. Often our words and thoughts divide these into separate categories. For the sake of clarity it’s sometimes helpful to consider them separately. But it’s disastrous in real life. Perhaps we are too used to treating death…
Category: the resurrection
Give Me Your Worst
Sketch by Patrick Murphy “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). “Grace” is the Life which can suffer and die yet be raised again. Christ in us is grace. He can go through weaknesses, difficulties, persecutions, and the like (2 Cor. 12:10). Not only do these not…
Our Affection for Rubble
“Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king” (1 Sam. 15:23). Israel asked for a king and rejected the Lord as King (1 Sam. 8: 7). God gave them what they asked for. Saul embodied their rejection of the Lord as King. He too (though he denied…
Me and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
I woke up this morning in a grumpy funk. As I tried to finish waking in the shower, my head filled with visions of the whole family going out for muffins and coffee. Post-shower, I told my wife. She said she planned to work out. Could we do it mid-morning after the workout? Well, that…
Cancer. Suicide. Grief.
“One Act” by Patrick Murphy My dad died of cancer in 2009. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about him, missing him, and grieving the last couple days. I’m a social worker by occupation. I manage in-home caregiver services for people who are disabled and/or elderly. On New Year’s Eve, one of my clients killed…
The Gospel According to Genesis
Created by Trey Hill \\ squarerootofnine.com Now, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, the earth was formless and empty, darkness was on the face of the deep, and Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. Then God said, “LET…
Synergy
http://www.123rf.com/photo_13502276_green-atom-electron-llustration-on-black-background.html Judges 19 tells the story of a woman who dies after being gang-raped. Her grief-stricken husband cuts up her body and sends a piece to Israel’s 12 tribes (Judges 19:29). Outraged, the tribes assemble “as one body” to deal with the crime (Judges 20:1, HCSB). The woman’s dismemberment evokes the Last Supper and the…
And I Quote! (Part 2)
http://www.123rf.com/photo_21098327_cartoon-boy–speech-bubble–vector-illustrations.html See Part 1 here “The disciples did not simply come to understand Christ in the light of the Passion. Rather, only when turned again (or were turned by the risen Christ) to the scriptures (meaning what we now call the ‘Old Testament’) did they begin to see there all sorts of references to Christ,…
And I Quote!
“The crucified and yet living Christ is the concrete summing up of the Christian message and the Christian faith. He is Himself the wholly concrete truth of Christianity.”—Hans Kung, On Being a Christian, chapter VI. “The scriptures declare Christ. And anything else you find in there is a product of your religious imaginations.”—JW Luman, Covenant Ministries Int’l. “Go to…
What the Lord Said Today
Picture by Darrell Creswell Something the Lord said to me today: “You have been discouraged about who you are. Be encouraged by who I am.” ” Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the…
The Voice of One 