This is a paper I offered to the Adams County Torch Club on December 15. It prompted a lot of discussion. I found myself reminding people several times, “Now remember I am a Christian.” I have a feeling we shall all be acknowledging that a lot in the coming few years. I wrote this paper […]
As I noted in the sixth lesson, most of us believe a primary element in a modern Sabbath life style would be worship in a Christian community once a week. At that time, I focused on “remembering” the stories from our tradition. However, the Christian life involves promise as well as memory, hope as well […]
Bob, Rita, and Derek all observed we do not base our lives entirely on what Jesus said in the Gospels, because we are sinners and live in a sinful world. From the very beginning, Christians understood this. They struggled with what Jesus’ words meant in this interim period between Jesus’ lifetime and the establishment of […]
Bob suggests we’ll always have false prophets, because we’ll always have people looking for religious interpretations that support their preconceived ideas and prejudices. I think we are bound to have more, because of the way modern media uses words. We are leaving the age of the printing press when people saw books as “hard copy’ […]
I can best explain my position on suffering by enclosing below a short paper I wrote decades ago to start discussion at a Lutheran conference. I think the Christian faith is contrarian by nature. We have some trouble seeing that, because it is so closely aligned with Northern American society. Most of the time I […]
Bob’s comment makes a wonderful summary: “The nexus between faith, love, and hope is exemplified by the phrase “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” It is not fully spelled out, but our faith assures us that we will be what God wants us to be, and since he is a loving God, […]
Let’s take a look at “hope” as we continue our study of the triad used to describe the Christian life. For what do we hope? A quick word search finds the object of Christian hope is usually our own resurrections or our sharing in the glory of God, two ways of saying the same thing. […]
Bob has entered the discussion again with his usual critical thought, forcing me to clarify my ideas. He wrote, “I think there is a strong argument that faith, hope, and love endure as constant beacons for the Christian life. Yet for many of us these illuminating beacons do not reveal universal, unchanging answers to the […]
Last week I tried to make the case for faith, hope, and love being a very careful choice for summarizing the Christian life. I’d like to take a few weeks to examine the features that make the triad so important. First, the three proclaim how Christians handle the very basic human activity of relating the […]
For two thousand years theologians have used the words “faith, hope, and love” to summarize the Christian message. It all began with Paul who said in Colossians 1: 4-6 that the triad is the “Gospel” and the “Word of Truth”. Although most theologians claim the three are essential for a healthy life and for correcting […]
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