Biblical Justice

Scripture Focus: I will test you with the measuring line of justice and the plumb line of righteousness. Isaiah 28:17 (NLT) While the classical idea of justice, giving each person their due, is important, it only scratches the surface of what justice actually means. The biblical sense of justice, what we call righteousness, goes much deeper. It’s easy for Christians

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When We Are Most Like Christ

In my previous article I made the claim saying yes to forgiveness is saying yes to God. I underscore that claim: We are most like Christ when we are doing what he did in his extravagant gift of love on Calvary…forgiving. I have a friend, Mary, a former Roman Catholic nun, who works as a program director for a Methodist

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Justice is a Natural Grace Marred by Sin

Scripture Focus: But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will

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Saying Yes to Forgiveness

Recently This Week magazine reported an amazing story of a Pakistani election commissioner admitting that he had participated in what he called the “rigging” of a parliamentary election. “We converted losers into winners,” said Liaquat. He confessed that he couldn’t sleep after what he called “stabbing the country in the back.” He resigned and was arrested. (March 1,2024, p. 9) 

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Justice: Giving Each Person Their Due

Scripture Focus: So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no

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Hurry Slowly

Years ago I came across a phrase that grabbed my attention. It was a season of my life when I was paying close attention to my own “spiritual state,” and as a result, seeking to develop particular spiritual disciplines. The phrase, a long obedience in the same direction, comes from Friedrich Nietzsche. This was his statement: “The essential thing in

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Victory Over Death

There is no if about death. The question is more accurately put, “When a person dies, shall he or she live again?”  Not one line of the New Testament was written… not one sentence was penned apart from the conviction that He of whom these things were being written had conquered death and was alive forever. Death is inevitable, and

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Embracing the New Wine: Reflections on the Changing Landscape of Ministry

“In the crushing, in the pressing You are making new wine In the soil I now surrender You are breaking new ground…” New Wine by Hillsong Worship My story of crushing and pressing really began in the middle of the pandemic. That’s when I gradually realized that the seminary training I received no longer aligned with reality. The U.S. Church

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Courage, Will and Freedom

Scripture Focus: Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel’s great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire. Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn’t find anything to criticize or

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What Happens When Everyone Stops Sinning

The preaching must have been powerful. In a recent cartoon, as he leads his parents from worship, Dennis the Menace confronts the preacher. “What happens when everyone stops sinning? What will you do?” While we are not strangers to sin, Dennis stuns us with his  statement and questions. We may not reflect or talk much about it. Yet, the great

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The Healing Power Of Honoring Others by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Recently I read a moving account of one German woman’s actions and the impact that they had. A 92-year-old man living in New Jersey received a three-page letter from her in which she apologized for wrongs long past. Reading it, he wept.  As the article recounts about the letter writer, “Doris Schott-Neuse…told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame

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When You Don’t Have The Words by Andy Stoddard

Have you ever felt like there was something that you needed to say for Jesus, but you didn’t have the words?  You didn’t know what you should say or how you should say it?  I’ve been there.  I think we’ve all been there. At times, we talk ourselves out of witnessing to someone or saying something to someone, because of fear within us about what

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Boundaries And Forgiveness by Aaron Perry

Jesus taught that if, when offering a gift to God at the altar, you remember a brother or sister has something against you, you should go and be reconciled and then return to offer your gift (Matt. 5:24). I get the impression that reconciliation is the gift God intends to give the worshipper—even before a gift has been brought to

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