To listen to unabridged message click here: With or Without Us
We are beginning a new series, and we’re going to spend the next four weeks looking at the little book of the prophet Jonah.
Now, you’ve probably heard sermons on Jonah before. In our family, the story of Jonah was the foundation of my son Ethan’s VeggieTales trauma.
Finished reading: He Who Fights with Monsters A LitRPG Adventure by Shirtaloon 📚
Definitely not as good as Dungeon Crawler Carl but a nice placeholder until the next DCC book hits my Libby app.
Finished reading: Scion by James Islington 📚
I enjoyed this short read from Islington. It was fast paced and enjoyable. It’s a fun take on a BladeRunner type concept.
To listen to the whole unabridged class: Paste Jewelry and a New Law
Beyond Sunday School: The Ragamuffin Gospel, chapters 7 and 8
Chapter 7 of The Ragamuffin Gospel gave me a picture of cheap grace I had not quite considered before.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave us the phrase “cheap grace.” Brennan Manning gives us paste jewelry and sawdust hot dogs. It is grace that looks like the real thing from a distance. It is faith we can put on for public display. It fills a plate, but it does not nourish anybody.
At the center of the chapter is a sentence that fairly punched me in the face. Manning has just quoted a long passage from the letter of James when he writes:
Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Eyes Forward
We have made it. We are here at the end of John chapter twenty-one — our nineteenth week in the Gospel of John. We’re going to put the final touches on this Gospel.
And the nice thing about a last sermon is that we just get to touch on some really simple, easy things brought to the fore here in these last few verses of John. We’re just going to deal with shame, comparison, and eternity. No big deal. Just small little things.
A beautiful Saturday hike at Matthaei Botanical Gardens today before sitting around and watching college football.
To listen to the whole unabridged class: Wonder and Gratitude
Beyond Sunday School — The Ragamuffin Gospel, chapters 5 and 6
When was the last time something ordinary stopped you right in your tracks?
Not a polite “oh, that’s kind of cool,” but a real wow. You just had to stand there and take it in.
“Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours."
- St. Teresa of Avila
Hat tip to Englewood Review of Books
An absolutely stunning boat ride today around Ford Lake in Ypsilanti, MI. I am so grateful for friends who invite me into deep conversation and time well spent.
Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Breakfast on the Beach
We are coming to the end now in our study of the Gospel of John. This is our penultimate message in the series. I just like saying penultimate. I think that’s a cool word.
So we’ve got this week and next, and then we will somehow have finished this entire Gospel in about nineteen weeks. Not too shabby, I suppose. And you have persevered well through it.
We pick it up in chapter 21, the last chapter — and scholars wrestle with it, because John’s Gospel really seems like it should have ended at chapter 20: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Done. Finished. Great job, John.
A beautiful fall hike at Crosswinds Marsh on a perfect Saturday morning.
Fall golf in Michigan is truly stunning.
Watched: Lanterns S1E8, Dirt and Stars 🍿
This show was absolutely fantastic from start to finish. I hope we get many more like it.
I miss the days where we were on blogger/blogspot and we were interacting with each other’s blog posts in the comments and had blogrolls and even did those blog arounds where everyone blogged about an idea and built off one another’s blog posts.
Those were good days.
LIsten to the unabridged audio here: Tilted Halos
Beyond Sunday School — The Ragamuffin Gospel, chapters 3 and 4
I still crack up at where Brennan Manning says the phrase “ragamuffin gospel” came from.
He overheard some valley girls talking, and one of them said something like, “Like, Jesus is totally intense — dying for ragamuffins and all.”
I can hear it in my head. Maybe I have watched Legally Blonde too many times, but I can hear it.
And yet, for all the comedy in that, Manning is getting at something deadly serious. We are rooted — absolutely rooted — in the necessity of grace.
