New Wine, New Wineskins

Cross-posted on Consuming Jesus.   There is a great deal of talk about production and consumption in American society today. Such talk is found inside the American church as well. In fact, a noted pastor has called on men to be real men by moving from being consumers to being producers. Whether we are talking [...]

“I heard you having trouble to get used to here?” So began the meeting this morning, as our supervisor walked into the room to discuss our decision to leave the school.  After many unheeded complaints about classroom conditions over the past few months, my wife was sexually assaulted by a student in class.  The school’s [...]

One of the most discouraging aspects of our time so far has been our complete inability to communicate with anyone other than each other.  We spent the past summer studying a different language expecting to go to a different country.  Plans have changed in a hurry, and we’ve yet to quite catch up.  The language [...]

We’ve visited an underground church in the area.  It was a beautiful experience.  We are grateful for the fellowship and hopeful this contact might lead to opportunities.  I’m considering contacting the leadership and offering a “Bible class” for the leadership or whoever is interested.  May God’s will be done.

In my last post, I tried to rethink the idea of God’s holiness in a way that makes better sense of the biblical narrative’s descriptions of His persistent, gracious presence with sinful humanity.  To give a short summary, I think the metaphor of God’s being “separate” or “far from” sin (spatial terms) often gets taken [...]