Our Lighted Path

Tonight could have gone to my search for peace. For months, I've wondered about how unwise it might be to walk from work at church to the sanctuary of another church, for Wednesday evening services. But struggles prevented me from dwelling on the thought. Struggles prevented even prayers about it. So I've wondered whether God has been trying to lead to elsewhere, and I've gradually felt like I'm finding the way. Meanwhile, it's posts like this that sometimes take the place of Wednesday night Bible studies at church. And, while I know this isn't as should be, I'm thankful I can make posts like these, as Paul was led to write sermons while in prisons, and as MLK did, also - for a reason, and not notoriety. I'm writing tonight, because I'm not struggling as usual, and because I feel like serious problems have a fighting chance at leaving us, if I say a few brief words while I'm able to. What I want to say comes from Bible studies at home. But I'...

  I could think of no other heading for this post, than "Oh. My. ... !" Oh, my word. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. John 12:24  puzzled me, but I left it in God's court and didn't try to understand. For years, I've wanted to garden well. And for years, I've dug into God's word. So it puzzled me that our heavenly maker, creator of the universe, the one who waited billions of years and counted it all as only a "day" to birth mankind and supply us with everything needed for living (including millions of years in dinosaur fuel) — that He would just up and say a seed dies in order to produce. But that is not what He has said. Of course, seeds do not completely die before taking root. Seeds only sleep. Seeds hibernate, so to speak. And when temperature and moisture are right, they awaken and set down their roots. Yet, that's not all seeds. All seeds are not blessed to cosily nestle beneath the cover of good soil and optimal weather. All seeds don...

"While it was still night, a messenger of the Lord opened the jail, brought them out, and called them to tell of the new life." (Acts 5:19) Tomorrow, many people will celebrate not God's love, not love from Heaven, not everlasting goodness, but a kind of affection that can sometimes be not godly at all. When we were young, many of us understood differences between brotherly/friendship love, healthy spousal love, and agape/church love - all covered by Jesus. But we didn't know there were gray areas that seem like love but aren't. And that's something many of our young people are witnessing now. Globally, there is a push right now to define love in what the Bible describes as "reprobate" terms. And that just shouldn't be. If the woman at the well tells us no other lesson, we should at least see from her story, that living together sinfully, for example, isn't God's will. Nor is being intrusive any kind of love. ... How many times does Jesus...

  It's the one scripture I raised an eyebrow at, bewildered, but didn't ask God to clarify. It's the one scripture I didn't ponder. I didn't put a question mark in my Bible's margin. I didn't think twice about it. I didn't pray about it. I think I just felt, "Well, God has that verse there, and He must have a reason." But I did not go any further than that. The passage says this: And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. 1 Timothy 2:14-15 That's according to the Bible's King James translation. And glancing at all of 1 Timothy 2:11-15, more verses than those two are puzzling in Paul's note to a young preacher named Timothy. But one thing that immediately made sense to me about it, is that this note had to have been written on one of those rare days when Paul was outlining some ...

  A traditional African-American church in Tennessee, has more than 33 graves: some in disrepair, others more recent. But as churches always have understood, the remains of departed loved ones are not the soul. As a Christian said on Easter morning, "He is not here." Cemeteries, sometimes, can give us some things to think about. As the preacher Paul contemplated the shortening of his steps on this side of life, he said Christians can't be hopeless. Brothers (and sisters), we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him." 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 In my own Christian walk, in my own recent experience, a preacher said we each have our own waking-up morning in Heaven — and that's despite the fact that millions are going home in Jesus. Often, funerals ...

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The Bible isn't a black and white history. I believe there is ethnic diversity in the Bible. And I do believe the Bible is a record of God's guidance to people who God counseled for many millennia, whether the people listened or not. I believe God gave prophets of the Bible some important impressions, both of how life began (a thousand, times thousand, times thousand, times thousand, times thousand-plus years being as a "day" to our heavenly Father), and of how life eternal will one day manifest. And the Bible's countless impressions aren't only broad images of the landscape of life over time. The Bible includes vivid and impressionistic paintings of the first people who God gave a written record. Israel, in the written record, was a people set free from bondage to other peoples, time and again. At that time, they had not traveled to Europe or to other cold, less sunny northerly places. And, in all likelihood, there were African pe...

The story of Jacob (a.k.a., "Israel") and Esau, helps us see Israel as a faithful people who, being flawed, struggle against Heaven and against man. And doesn't that sound like much of humanity today? Whoever Israel was, ethnically, it's a people who traveled desert places before finding victory in faith, a people who struggled most desperately under Babylon, Egypt, and Rome — and a people whose internal conflicts included genocide of the mixed-race heritage it had in Edom (i.e., Idumea). But God has cherished Israel: knowing "His people" would steadfastly hold to faith in Jesus (Ye-su), the promised Redeemer, our one heavenly Savior. Like us as African Americans who later believed, God gave His word and plan to His most faithful people of struggle. Says a Bible prophet: In his love and mercy he redeems them; H e lifts them up and carries them all the days of old. Isaiah 63:9 God gave His word, plan, and deliverance to the faithful: to the faithful who were ...