There are head people and heart people. Head people think deeply and analyze thoroughly. Heart people feel intensely and empathize easily. Some think with the heads; others lead with their hearts. It is rare to find people who can put head and...
I struggled early in preaching to convey abstract theological concepts in common, everyday speech. I often turned to the book, Wishful Thinking, to help in this endeavor. Its author, Frederick Buechner (1926-2022) wrote novels and short stories...
Hitler's takeover of the German Evangelical Church was resisted by a small number of dissenting pastors like Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). Dietrich challenged his pastoral colleagues to stand for Christ and not succumb to Hitler's fear tactics....
Prayer takes many forms. So called "Flash Prayers" are brief, sentence prayers that can be offered to God throughout the day. "Lord, help this person," "God, open their eyes" and "Thank you, Lord" are but a few examples. Harriet Tubman (1822-1913)...
I'm more interested in the prayer attributed to Francis Drake (1540-1596) than with Francis himself. While he is a colorful figure of history, he represents a mixed bag in matters of faith. His letters bear witness to genuine belief, yet his...
At a slave auction block at Boston harbor on July 11, 1761, "A small, frail, female child was sold...for a trifle." Her only covering was a scrap of carpet, and her owner was in a hurry to sell her, convinced she wouldn't survive. Suzanna...
I preached a sermon series a few years ago on The Song of Songs (alternatively Song of Solomon). It's an intriguing Old Testament book, given that it reads like a love sonnet between a prospective bride and groom. God's name is conspicuously absent...
The Roman Emperor Valens sent into exile any church bishop who displeased him. As a supporter of Arius, who denied Jesus was coeternal with God, Valens was gunning for bishops who did not conform to his way of thinking. He sent Modestus, a...
In the early 1500's, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in England thought it was heretical to translate the Bible into English. Since Latin was considered the sacred language of Scripture, translating it into the English language was a crime...
There was bad blood between Protestants and Catholics in the sixteenth century. Protestant John Knox (1514-1572) was a galley slave for nineteen months on a French ship. During the celebration of Mass on board ship, every slave was required to...
Tertullian (155-220) wrote, "Prayer alone conquers God." But I thought nothing could conquer God. I'll say more about his quote in a moment but first some background on Tertullian. He lived in Carthage, North Africa, second only to Rome as a...
The worldwide COVID pandemic caught us by surprise. We thought epidemics were a thing of the past with modern medicine at our disposal to save us. The myth of our invincibility has now been exposed. A deadly plague decimated the Roman Empire from...
The Ten Boom family who lived in the Netherlands were devout Christians who joined the Dutch resistant movement to hide Jews from Nazi authorities during the Second World War. They constructed a hiding place for six people in their home who could...
Augustine (354-430) was restless. He identified his restlessness at the outset of his autobiography, Confessions, "Thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee." As Augustine looked back over his life in...
The church I served used to sing from an old songbook the hymn, "Sometimes a Light Surprises." While the hymn has fallen out of favor in our day, its words have never left me. Consider the way the song begins: Sometimes a light surprises, a...
Adam Arnett never spoke a word in his life. He couldn't dress himself, walk on his own and was susceptible to daily seizures. Yet he had a profound influence on Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), one of the most respected Catholic teachers and writers of...
The church was locked in a conflict with the Arians (who insisted God the Father created Jesus the Son, thereby making Jesus a lesser being) over who would be elected the next bishop of Milan. Ambrose (ca. 339-397), who was Milan's governor at the...
I have preached under trying circumstances, but nothing compared to William Laud's (1573-1645) concluding sermon. It was preached at the scaffold on a cold day in January 1645 moments before his scheduled execution. William was an Anglican priest...