There are trails of breadcrumbs out there, I have found them. At first I didn’t recognize it as a trail, the place where the trail is laid can sometimes obscure it. Yet the more I find these trails, and follow them, the more I recognize other trails when I come upon them. At first I…
Continuing to blog…
Blogging can be difficult. Trevin Wax says so and I’m inclined to agree. I have no end of ideas of which to write about, as the Apostle Paul might say, but what I want to do, I find I cannot do. In fact I have started no less than a dozen entries into my blog…
Identifying spiritually mature Christians
The other day I was in a conversation with another Christian about what made certain Christians seem to stick out. What quality or qualities did they have that seem be to be different from other people. Certainly some people have more winsome personalities than others, but more than personality, there seem to be some…
Why the ‘Classics’ inspire
A couple of summers ago my wife and I ventured into the National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square and had an opportunity to see some of the world’s most famous paintings, including Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”. We have a print of it at home but to see it in real life was incredible, the real painting…
Enjoying boredom
That title seems to be a bit ….unusual, doesn’t it? Enjoy boredom? Why would anyone want to do that? It is a bit of weird thing to write about. I would imagine every healthy child in world history has at some point complained to their parents, “I’m bored”. I learned very quickly, to not ever,…
Using great literature in sermons part deux
Great Literature can be a huge aid in sermon illustrations, helping to produce a emotional connection in unique and powerful ways…..if we use it right. It is important that we must not only understand the passage of scripture well enough to use the right quote or passage of literature, but also to know the literature…
Using Great Literature in Preaching
A friend of mine, Nick Cady, mentioned reading great literature as an aid to illustration in his sermons recently in a blog. He did it through a highly creative and interesting way by suggesting how Ernest Hemingway might answer the proverbial joke, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” in some of his books.That is…
Keeping History Human
Justin Taylor in his blog on The Gospel Coalition site writes of one of the founding fathers of the United States and his work on the first English translation of the Septuagint- the Greek Translation of the Old Testament. What I found especially interesting was the beginning of the blog entry in which he cites…
Rebellious conformity
Living near Portland it is nearly impossible to not see bumper stickers that say, “Keep Portland Weird”. They seem to be ubiquitous and increasingly so as you drive into the downtown area, on cars and almost anything else that has a smooth surface. Most public entities proclaim their non-conformist attitudes and perspectives with businesses using…
The escalation of anger and bitterness in our society
A friend of mine and I were chatting online this morning about the anger and bitterness that seems to be taking over our society. I see two reasons for this- First, our culture no longer has any real baseline moral code that is generally agreed upon. There are moral events or ideas that are generally…
The Eclectic Christian 