You know this passage from a wedding you were in or attended. But what is Paul, a single, tent maker and Old Testament scholar doing writing about love? There must be something more going on than a wedding sermon.
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Help! I’m Preaching Through Esther.
Rather than a story of how things ought to be, Esther shows us how someone was faithful in the world as it is: painful, fear-filled, and potential hopeless. Only God offers a way out. Perhaps He has us right where He wants us to be a part of His bigger redemption story.
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The Old Redemption Story: Illustrations from the Book of Ruth
The book of Ruth begins in brokenness. The time of the Judges had seen people go from obedient and devoted followers of God to fickle and nameless wanderers who came to Him temporarily in their times of greatest distress. The first chapter records how one family even leaves God’s “Promised Land” to seek life elsewhere. The book of Ruth is short but deep. We see suffering, but we see restoration. The hope of the Gospel is very much alive even centuries before the arrival of the Messiah. This outsider and foreigner teaches us what it’s like to be an insider with God. In the midst of broken times, we are reminded that God knows us by name. When we are tempted to look back at how things used to be, we learn that there is nothing better behind us than the God before us. For all of us whose paradise has ever been broken, let’s make Ruth’s God of restoration our God too! Where He goes, we go.
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Is She Worthy?: The Medieval Church’s Dark History of Violence against Women
Social progress doesn’t fix every problem. Healthy doctrinal shifts don’t always fix cultural biases. Even the Reformation that so many Protestants cling to as the greatest spiritual salve of all time didn’t begin to mend many deep-seated sins. Unfortunately, this is evident in the sordid history of violence against women in the church, by the church, and for the church. The suspect status of women in portions of modern Christianity is the ugly gargoyle adorning the beautiful Bride of Christ—blatantly grotesque to all on the outside but invisible to the worshipers inside.
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Stotts City Baptist Church
The Genealogy of Your Faith and the Value of Social Historical Theology
It was a clear and hot Sunday for October in Southwest Missouri. The doors of Stotts City Baptist Church opened to invite a breeze as the temperature climbed to 88 degrees outside. Inside, a fervor of God brought another kind of warmth that was unique to such a small outpost in God’s Kingdom. A young father had surrendered to a call to preach, and the church body rallied to recognize and endorse this divine appointment.
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Painting of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux by Vicente Berdusán Osorio.
5 Great Sermons from Church History - #3 Bernard of Clairvaux on Song of Solomon
This is the third installment of a five-part series called, "5 Great Sermons from Church History." See the first here and the second here. This is not meant to indicate that these are the greatest or the best sermons, or even the five most important in the history of the church. However, these sermons were selected based on historical significance, content, accessibility (both good translations and comprehensibility), and each as exemplary of the particular era in which it occurred.
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Bernard of Clairvaux and His Song of Songs Sermon Series: An Introduction to the First 20
“And now that we have passed through the shadow-land of allegories, it is time to explore the great plains of mortal truths. Our faith has been strengthened, let our lives reveal its influence; our intellects have been enlightened, let them prescribe the right behavior. For they have sound sense who do this, if they direct their actions and understanding toward the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever.”
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The Most Significant Book Christians Have Forgotten
As we prepare our reading lists for 2019, let us take this opportunity to remind ourselves of perhaps the most significant book that Christians—all the way from the casual reader to the master’s level seminary student—have almost completely forgotten.
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Take up your [Sword] Daily: Beliefs about Salvation During the Spanish Reconquista
Even among the strangest medieval twistings of theology, it is sometimes possible to see the faintly flickering elements of the Gospel. While many sought to adapt the Scripture to fit their needs, a few found in its pages the hope and mission of Christ to make disciples of all nations.
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Cry Like Charlemagne: Letting History Teach us How to Grieve
The human experience is one of loss but let us not forget those who have gone before us to lay their own pavers into the road of grief that we all must travel. Take their hand and lean on their tired shoulders for a few miles.
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Gateway to Paradise: Medieval and Renaissance Views of Baptism
The door to the local baptistery truly became the gates to paradise for members of the Florentine congregation as the hope and promise of eternal life surely did lay on the other side of its waters. As beautiful and haunting as the door’s images, the hopeful minds of parents carrying their children through the gates to be ushered into the Kingdom of God can be just as jarring. No angel with flaming sword guarding this path, Ghiberti’s gates swung wide to receive all who wished to pass on their beliefs to the next generation.
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Pascal, Anselm, and the State of Communicating Deep Ideas to an Unsuspecting Public
In this struggle, we see our own quest to relay history and theology to students in both classroom and pew. We must not evacuate all deep thoughts and become shallow. To this end, we must value the simple not the simplistic. Further, the most eloquent tidbit of knowledge is nothing if left sitting in the corner of our academic minds. As Anselm’s students knew, his ideas had immense value if they could be taken out, dusted off, and made to see the light of day. In the same way, the most priceless antique is failing to pursue its purpose if left wrapped in the attic. The best ideas must be given eloquent legs that allow them to walk beyond their speaker and indwell the lives of future generations.
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The Song of Roland, the Servant of Satan, and an Inside Look at Medieval Islamophobia
Today’s Christians need to correctly understand Islamic theology and practice if they ever hope to have meaningful communication with the ever-growing Muslim population living without the good news of Jesus. The church should be the first to speak up for all humans not because they are compromising their own beliefs, but because they understand the need to replace "The Five Pillars" with the fearless monolith of Christ.
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