Image from The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) In the garden of Gethsemane, tears and bloody sweat dripped from Jesus’s face. He was praying hard, asking if there was any way out of the cross: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as…
Category: Theology
Jesus Done Got Hitched
Comic by Chan Lowe So maybe you heard: Some scholar says Jesus may have had a wife. I won’t bore you by rehashing a debate that amounts to nothing. You can read about it yourself if you want. Big, fat zero or not, I felt annoyed when I first read about it. Once again, non-Christians are…
The Only Truth I Know
Simon & Garfunkel “I stand alone without beliefs. The only truth I know is you.” —Paul Simon, “Kathy’s Song” Paul Simon wrote the above lyric for a woman. “Kathy’s Song” is a love song par excellance. Yet every time I hear this line from the song, I cannot help but think of the Lord. Over…
The Seventh Day
“God Resting on the Seventh Day” (19th Century German Engraving) This is the account of the heavens and the earth in the day when they were created. Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha),…
Mosaics, Quilts, and Piles of Socks
What should church “look like?” How should we “do church?” I hear these and similar questions bandied about regularly. There are lots of different answers. Some say we should “do church” like they did in the New Testament. In reality, there was no single New Testament way of “doing church.” There was a mosaic of…
The Myth of Heaven (?)
Our Pastor is preaching through 1 Corinthians. Today we started chapter 15. Paul is dealing with a Corinthian coterie that says there is no resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12). It’s possible this was a group of Gnostics. Gnostics said the body was meaningless. It was only a house of corruption imprisoning the spirit. Bodily resurrection would…
Bloom without End
Photo by Carrie McKamey If you’ve followed The Voice of One at all, you know weakness is a theme that comes up regularly. I’m thinking about it again tonight. Weakness usually comes to mind when personal failures or shortcomings break out of me like a caged animal. Or when it seems my soul is surrounded…
Foreskins?!? Ewww…
It’s hard to forget the price David paid for his first wife, Michal: 200 Philistine foreskins. (Cue teenage girl saying, “Ewww! Gross!”). Now, there’s only one way a Philistine would part with his foreskin, and that’s if the whole man died. So David was giving Michal’s father, Saul, 200 dead soldiers. That meant Israel’s enemy…
Had You for a Minute, Didn’t I?
I don’t believe in prayer. I believe in the One who answers prayer. I don’t seek blessings. I seek the Blesser. I don’t go to church. I gather with those who are the church. I don’t believe in the power of words. I believe in the Word. I don’t seek the…
I Don’t Mean to Step on Toes. I’m Just a Bad Dancer.
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (Acts 16:30-31). Disclaimer: I don’t mean to step on toes. I’m just a bad dancer. “What must I do to be saved?” This is THE question, isn’t it? The question for…
The Voice of One 