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I’m speaking on the Good Samaritan in a few weeks, so I started reading Snodgrass’s highly recommended Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Here’s a little something to ponder from the first chapter: Stories are not inherently Christian and do not automatically convey truth. They can be used to communicate [...]

Last Sunday was one of the most important days of my life. My family and I spent the weekend in Bracebridge, speaking at Wellington Street Pentecostal Church. Following the service, the congregation voted me in as their next pastor. Donna, Ryan and I can hardly wait to get started. If you’re reading this from Bracebridge, [...]

Halloween was highly controversial in Bible College. Half the school was hopped-up on Rebecca Brown and Chick Tracks, while the other half thought Halloween was all about cute kids and candy. I found myself among the candy contingent. That explains why, in my third year of college, my friend and I dressed up like Kiss [...]

A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997 © 1998 Counterpoint 216 pages This past summer I paddled the Missinaibi River from Missinaibi Lake to Mattice. In the evenings around the campfire, I would read a poem or two from this volume. Berry’s a farmer from Kentucky, so it might seem odd that his poems felt [...]

While preparing a 1 John post, I came across a beautiful line by Bengel, translated from the Latin by Bultmann for his commentary: Ubi non est amor, odium est: cor non est vacuum. Where there is no love, there is hate; the heart is not empty.

(There’s gallery of pictures at the end of the post.) I’ve hiked the LaCloche loop through Killarney twice now. The second time ’round, my friends and I had the energy to climb Silver Peak. After returning home and looking at the map, I realized that Silver Peak would make a good weekend trip. This past [...]

The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation © 2000 Harper Collins 205 pages A stranger walks into an isolated village and offers unimaginable wealth to the villagers if someone is found murdered by the end of the week. What a great premise for a story! It’s sad that such an interesting idea came [...]

Sometimes we need to be reminded of the basics. I’ll let Calvin speak for himself (from the Institutes): God works in his elect in two ways: within, through his Spirit; without, through his word. By his Spirit, illuminating their minds and forming their hearts to the love and cultivation of righteousness, he makes them a [...]

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world . . .” 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world . . .” There’s an apparent contradiction—a mixed message—here. You can’t get around it linguistically. The same author wrote these verses using the verb agapaō for love and the noun kosmos for world in [...]

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible © 2008 Zondervan 236 pages I grew up proud of the fact that my church didn’t follow a set liturgy—we followed the Spirit instead. I cringe at the arrogance while writing that now, but it used to be my reality. As I grew up I met [...]