Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Recently I was visiting with a friend who was once a pastor. His marriage is broken—already into years of separation with no restoration in sight—yet he longs to be together with his wife again. In our conversation he touched on the promise of Romans 8:28—”for those who love God all thing work together for good”—as …
Read More Pain, Patience and ProvidenceYears ago I was impressed by what I read about Helmut Thielicke as he toured the United States. When he was asked by a reporter what impressions he had of the American church as a whole he responded to this effect: the church is wide and lively but it seems not to understand the benefits …
Read More Reversing rolesAt times I’ve been cheered on by others with a hearty “way to go!” The cheer celebrates a moment of progress or success. And there are other ways way is used. In the Bible the term often serves as a moral metaphor. Listen, for instance, to Jesus: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). …
Read More Way to go!The irony wasn’t lost on me. All my writing of the past three months evaporated in a keystroke. The subject of my writing? Sin. The cause of the lost file? A computer virus that wiped out both my back-up file and my hard drive. I hadn’t made any print copies of the project so I …
Read More Thank you Lord!The Bible is a faith-producing book. As we read it boldly and regularly it generates a response: a growing confidence in God and, with that, a sense of entrustment. The Bible is also brutally honest. It tells stories of misguided faith and un-faith. For the faithful reader those stories help in navigating a dangerously skeptical …
Read More Hearts both tender and hardThis is a new iteration of a story I’ve used in talks and in earlier informal compositions. The Bible will strike most objective readers as odd, very odd. Why? Because it has so much gross content: sin, arrogance, murder, incompetence, hatred, brazen betrayals, and much more. The startled reader who takes up the book without …
Read More Parable of the capsized cruise shipClive Cowell makes his debut on Spreading Goodness by offering a reflection stirred by a posting by Peter Mead on January 4 (a second offering by Peter was posted on February 15). Clive is a dear friend who presently serves as the Executive Director of the Bible Institute of Hawaii. Read and enjoy! My …
Read More The beauty of divine conversationThis is a revision of a post I first offered a few years ago for the Multnomah University website that maintains Alumni connections. Years ago, long before today’s satellite GPS—global-positioning-systems—the standard way for navigating boats of any size through inland waterways was to combine a set of resources: the boat’s radar, its magnetic compass, …
Read More Navigating by faithFifteen years ago last Tuesday the killings started. In just 100 days almost a million people were killed. Nearly two thousand years ago last Friday God’s Son was killed. The conjunction of the two remembrances in one week was striking to me even though the events are distant from each other in time and scale. …
Read More Genocide and the CrossThe psalmist, David, began Psalm 138 with a resounding peal of praise: “I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart!” In the stanza immediately following he spoke of bowing down toward the Jerusalem center of worship—to the tent where the ark was located. But it wasn’t this temple that stirred his worship, …
Read More The name and word of God