Articles
Matthew 10:29
The tour van stops in front of the gate
to let out the guide and his charges.
My sister-in-law and I cross the street
hoping to catch some history
but most only stay five minutes
or so, in and out
as fast as confession might take.
But we linger after the tourists leave
the sanctuary where sparrows
fly freely in through windows left open
for a breeze, in, then back out and back in
again, true worshippers.
Donna Smith 4-23-2015
Parroquia de San Lucas Evangelista, the Parish of Saint Luke the Evangelist
Cabo San Lucas Photo by Donna Smith
by Grant Christiansen
In John 3:16 Jesus proclaims the most remarkable promise ever given to humankind: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (RSV) His promise is given irrespective of one's ability, ethnicity, gender, merit, performance, status or work; his promise is give to the most desperate and evil of men and women as well as to the best amongst us! The result of believing his promise is the deepest longing of the human heart: eternal life.
The promise begins with a simple word: for. "For God so loved the world...." The word for serves as marking the reason for what has just preceded. In John 3:14-15 Jesus had said, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (RSV) Jesus has likened his being lifted up on the cross to an ancient account of the Hebrew people's disobedience in grumbling against God after having been delivered from slavery in Egypt.
by Frank Tyler
Introduction
How many Christians both hear and quote from memory the following verse… perhaps hundreds of times?
For God so (ο ὕ τως) loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16; bold added for emphasis) [1]
As your brother in Christ, may I ask, if God so loved the world, and demonstrates His love through Jesus’ incarnation and crucifixion ( that He gave His only begotten Son) and then through Jesus’ promise of everlasting life [2] ( that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life ), then what is the manner of His love? Many say, “loved so much;” others might say, “loved sacrificially.” Following in the historical wake of our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection, these answers remain transparently true, and are rightfully the basis of many outstanding evangelistic tracts. However, in His witness to Nicodemus, Jesus had not yet been crucified; therefore, He was witnessing to an individual who could not have understood God’s love for the world based upon an event which had yet to transpire. If neither answer accounts for Jesus’ witness to Nicodemus, then what is the manner of God’s love that Nicodemus might understand within the immediate context of Jesus’ witness?
by Don Crouse
Copyright 2018 Don Crouse
We have the iMac, the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone. Now, I present to you, the iMonkey! It's still in beta testing, but it will work just fine for my purposes today.
So what exactly is the iMonkey? Well, I'm glad you asked (just pretend you actually care). The iMonkey is the smart monkey. I didn't invent it. But it's about time someone marketed it! You probably already have some familiarity with the smart monkey and you don't even know it. It's actually called the Infinite Monkey Theorem.[1] The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will type the complete works of William Shakespeare. Well, that is something, isn't it? Amazing - especially considering William Shakespeare didn't even do that! The typewriter wasn't invented until 1808. Shakespeare died in 1616. But that doesn't stop the iMonkey! The iMonkey isn't obligated to live by the normal constraints of time and physics. And it doesn't even have to work in reality. It just has to work in principle… because it's only a theory. Of course, in the real world, the iMonkey would never work; but in theory anything is possible, right? Well, maybe not.