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Leaving the Shire
From the cozy confines of the Shire to the wider world of Middle-earth, my experiences shaped me into a socially-justice-oriented individual.
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I think the first time I really saw pornography was on a fuzzy TV channel that would occasionally straighten out into something visually comprehensible. When the image finally broke through, it felt like I was hit by a powerful force. It was like every good and bad emotion in existence were all lit up inside…
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Pastor and theologian Jack Deere spent the week in group therapy with others who all had a similar story: abusive mothers, passive fathers, and traumatic childhoods. Jack followed the therapist’s instructions, bringing his mother into his imagination for a conversation. He soon found himself screaming in front of the group. Then he did the same…
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The Old Testament law has a strange place in Christian tradition. On one hand, we know we’re dead to it and alive in the Spirit. But on the other hand, we know that as Christians we can’t just do whatever the “hell” we want—that’d be a blasphemous nonsense. So what then? Is being dead to…
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It weirded me out the first time I realized it. I was familiar with the concept of Jesus being “the light of the world,” but I was less familiar with the Bible passage that identified Christians as “the light of the world.” But sure enough, there it was, staring me in the face the whole…
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People often mix politics and Jesus together. I do the same, but with a specific understanding of how to blend the two together: (1) Jesus is my King and I am a citizen of his Kingdom. (2) I follow his politics whether or not it meshes with the kingdoms of this earth. (3) I prophetically…
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They left their dad in the boat. People always make the disciples out to be stupid fishermen who gave up a crappy life for something better, but you actually had to be a pretty successful (if not shrewd) businessman to survive the thriving fishing market on the Sea of Galilee. This is where Jesus found…
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I’ve run into an enigma here and there where people want to keep the idea of God, but they don’t want to agree with him. And so some find themselves venturing down a path where God can still exist, but his opinion doesn’t really matter. With nothing really to guide their opinion about him other…
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A few years back, an artist grafted a tree together that was capable of growing 40 different kinds of fruits. This is a more extravagant picture of what Paul presents in his letter to the Romans. There he pictures the Jewish people as an olive tree that God grew and non-Jewish people as wild olives…
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Israel was elected by God to bear his name in the world. Everywhere they went, they were to be a representation of who God is, what he’s like, and how the people under him should live, govern, speak and act. Israelites we’re literally born as the elect, chosen people of God and his salvation. Except…
