Wandering Elder

 I was recently given a copy of Gayle Erwin’s book The Jesus Style (YAHSHUA Publishing, 2009)by a member of my congregation who had received it in the mail (solicited or unsolicited I do not know).  She gave the book to me more because I “like books” rather than because she thought it had a particularly attractive, controversial, or questionable content and wanted my feedback. I found that I was not initially impressed with the work.  As I read the first two chapters, I found that much of what he was saying I found to be quite hard to take in that it seemed so spurious.  For example, his treatment of Jesus’ childhood has little basis in scripture at all.  “Do you suppose the friends and neighbors of Jesus never asked him why he didn't favor Joseph?  Do you suppose his childhood friends never gathered and laughed at the claim that the Holy Spirit was his father?  Do you suppose the Pharisees never brought it up to him?”(p.9)  My init...

Several years ago, the Christian faith moved in an odd direction as large swaths of believers embraced the book The Message created by Eugene Peterson.  In and of itself, the book “The Message” is merely a more modern paraphrase than the Living Bible.  And while Peterson has done a vastly superior job of turning the language of the New Testament into the vernacular, we read it at our own risk and we accept it as authoritative at our peril. With new 'dynamic translations' emerging such as The Voice , I find myself somewhat nervous when I hear these 'versions' of the Bible being read as  scripture.  That's because when you read The Message or The Voice , you are basically reading a stylized narrative based on the texts of the New Testament.  A good first page of these works might read, " Based on  the New Testament" in much the same spirit as movies that are loosely based on a true story.  Perhaps a more accurate opening page would read " Inspir...

It is frightening how quickly and how much we change as we journey through life.  Sometimes we look in the mirror only to hesitate and wonder, "Who is this?"  or ask "Where did I go?"  We can forget who we are, because sometimes we still think we are who we were. In my own life, I have to recognize my changes, both dramatic and small.  The only way to be comfortable with who you are is to know  who you are and to recognize the journey that has brought you to that point - the good and the bad. For example, when I was in high school and my parents divorced, I used to think that if I was in a car wreck going to visit one of them, that it was their fault.  Even if I was the one who ran a red light or pulled in front of a garbage truck and was technically at fault, I thought  that it wasn't my fault.  The blame rested on the divorce. I thought that for years. Then I realized that there were plenty of other events in life that I could use as 'st...