The prophet Hosea lived approximately 769-697 BCE and his focused message from God relates primarily with Israel’s worship practices – especially their relationship with the Canaanite gods.  These worship practices were not innocent in nature.  It’s not like they showed up at a different temple and sat through a sermon on...

Sherry Knowlton and I, two of the authors for the book “American Roulette” were interviewed by Scott LaMar on The Spark on WITF. You can watch the interview in the link below....

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-gtksr-14efd34 In yesterday’s sermon I asked the question – what is a god?  There are plenty of things in the world that people make into gods – the things that get worshipped and listened to and form our identity.  But these false gods are always lacking and never give...

The Narrative Lectionary continues marching us forward with an important segment of the story of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  In Sunday’s reading we hear about King Ahab, who is the seventh Northern king of Israel.  His wife, Queen Jezebel, was from Sidon and this created a political alliance between the...

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-em7jx-14e554c How does the world go on?  It seems like there are always power struggles, division, destruction.  It’s a miracle anything works at all.  And that is Good News because it means God is the one who makes things go forward.  And in that there is hope.  Today we...

Stroll through Scripture for Sunday, October 30, 2023 assigned reading – 1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29 Human history is full of stories of division and conflict.  Stories about who has power and what they do with that power.  Often stories about the use of power showcase something very common to the human experience...

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-eysd9-14dae77 We would like it if God would make everything all nice and neat and orderly, but that’s not what God promises.  Instead, God promises to show up in the midst of the mess of reality to be with us and tell us how much God loves us.  Today...

And I feel fine. Or so goes the iconic song by REM.  Or is it? And how do we actually feel?  I know there is a segment of Christianity that is addicted to constant predictions about the end of the world and all the hysteria that goes with it....

Stroll through Scripture for Sunday, October 22, 2023 assigned reading – 2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5; Psalm 150 (Narrative Lectionary) Since the beginning of September, we have been following the Narrative Lectionary.  A lectionary is simply a schedule of readings, a sort of path through Scripture and the church year.  One of the wonderful...

I’m colorblind. Or to be more technical about it, I’m color deficient. This means that I have difficulty distinguishing between what I would call similar colors. I’m guessing this might not make a whole lot of sense to “normal” color vision people.  Most of the challenge arises when I...