The Gifts of Women

As we celebrate “The Gifts of Women Sunday,” it’s easy for some to take the honored role of women leaders in the church for granted. I never have and never will. Some of the best women I know have been Presbyterian women. In particular, there have been four...

Temptation of Jesus

When we look at Jesus’ forty days and nights in the desert, we see that Satan tries to tempt Jesus via His ego. In other words, Satan wants Jesus to embrace His ego, rather than surrender it to the Father.  The most basic meaning of the word ego is that it...

The Transfiguration

Sometimes, without knowing it or even being aware of it, we can get locked into our own world and our particular situation. We can forget about or lose sight of the fact that we are part of a much bigger world. In our Gospel reading, Jesus takes some of his friends...

On Eagle’s Wings

In Exodus 19:4, God tells Moses, “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagles’ wings and brought you here to myself.” It is one of two similar references in scripture; the other comes from the prophet Isaiah,...

“What We Need”

There is a well-known Christian phrase that says, “God is good,” to which others will then respond, “all the time.” The call and response continues with “All the time,” followed by “God is good.” It’s such a simple phrase, but it gets at the heart of what we as...

Ekklesia

Listen to a group of people talk about “church” for any length of time and you’ll quickly discover that we use the word church in a variety of ways. It’s much like the word love…we don’t love pizza, or steak (or whatever) as much as we love God or our friends...