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The Gospel of Gotcha
My kid brother enjoyed torturing me. It wasn’t hard to do. Two of his favorite methods of torture were to hide places in the house and jump out at me as I walked past (I was a nervous kid right out of the gate) or sneak up to the windows after school and try to …[ read more ]
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Voluntary Chain Gangs
Ever serve time on a chain gang? I’ll bet you have. I’ll even bet you’ve volunteered to join one. If you’ve never seen one, it was a practice, now mostly abolished, whereby prisoners were chained together in order to do menial labor such as building roads or digging ditches. They were linked to one another …[ read more ]
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How Christians Get Away with Murder (but not really)
Thou shalt not kill. Most of us feel pretty safe around that verse – even in the King James Version. In fact, we get downright smug about it in modern translations – “You shall not murder.” Some of us take to boasting a little. “Hey, I’m a pretty good person. I’ve never murdered anyone.” Or …[ read more ]
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Breathing Lessons for a New Year
Last night I attended a wedding for a young man I watched grow up. Surrounded by dear friends on New Year’s Eve and young people who, only yesterday, we were supervising at play, I was pierced with the spear of the forward movement of time. In that room were friends I have known a long …[ read more ]
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One More Tradition St. Patrick Started (That You Can Do to Celebrate Today)
We live in a time when we have access to the stories of so many who loved Christ before we did and who followed Him through every imaginable obstacle and trial. This is a wonderful resource for us as Christians. To celebrate St. Patrick is to celebrate the power of God who continues to work …[ read more ]