Expressions of Faith

an outlet of encouragement, explanation, and exhortation

Page 7 of 24

Some Articles I (may or may not) refer to in my “Hot Topics – Abortion” Message

Here are links to some of the articles I mention in my “Hot Topics” message on abortion (also available as the LBFC Weekly Sermons podcast). Or perhaps these are things I should have mentioned, depending on which version you hear/watch.

One helpful article was David Novak’s What Does the Bible Say about Abortion. Novak is speaking about Jewish scripture with the word “Bible” in his title. Novak explains how a number of passages from Jewish scripture are mis-used and clarifies good interpretations.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is interviewed on All Things Considered regarding how abortion became a mobilizing issue for the religious right. She discusses the polarization and politicization of the abortion issue. For a longer read with much more detailed scholarship, try her book Jesus and John Wayne. I’ve written a bit more on Kristen Kobes Du Mez here. In a similar vein, Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth might be helpful.

Sarah Williams wrote a remarkable book about deciding to carry her daughter Cerian to term, shocking medical staff and professional colleagues. The recently rewritten edition is entitled Perfectly Human – Nine Months with Cerian. I first read this book and handed many copies out to others some years ago when it was first published as The Shaming of the Strong: The Challenge of an Unborn Life. It is a powerful book that you may find difficult to put down once you begin reading. While this book is easy to read for a general audience, Sarah Williams is a first-rate scholar that I first encountered through classes she taught at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. Her classes Marriage, Sex, and Family in Historical Perspective and another with the boring-sounding title Church and State in the Modern World are remarkably insightful; I learned a lot! Anything Sarah Williams does is bound to be top-notch and worth your attention.

Also, I wrote a series of short articles on women in the church and marriage on this blog some years ago that you can access here.

What is Thy only comfort in life and death?

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ…

from the Heidelberg Catechism, Day 1

I found those words at the beginning of the catechetical response to be encouraging. Of course, there is more detail to the complete answer in the catechism. Catechisms tend to be wordy! (Not that I object to the rest of the response…)

Q. What is Thy only comfort in life and death?

A. That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

I recorded a message related to this thought for January 15, 2023, after returning from a family trip to Ireland.

For an historical Quaker catechism, check out Barclay’s Catechism here (Quaker Heritage Press) or here (Google Books) or here (Wikisource).

Can you find it in Jesus?

I saw a comment by Brian Zahnd the other day on Jesus’ disciples in the Gospel of Luke that bears repeating. So I’m repeating it!

The “Sons of Thunder” wanted to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village who refused to welcome Jesus. In their petition they were able to cite Scripture because Elijah had done this. But Jesus rebuked them, saying, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.”

The question isn’t can we find it in the Bible, but can we find it in Jesus. If we weaponize the Bible to hurt other people, we do not have the Spirit of the Lord.

Raymond Chang on Christianity

Christianity is intended to be a faith that is generous in a world that promotes scarcity, kind in a world that is harsh, generative where there is decay, healing where there is hurt, reconciling where there is division, and merciful and loving where there is hate.

-Raymond Chang

A man who lies to himself….

“A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying—lying to others and to yourself.”

Elder Zosima, in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Book II, Chapter 2

The Bible is the Language of God’s Heart

When it comes to hearing God, the Bible is the language of his heart. Nothing he says in any other way in any other context will ever override, undermine or contradict what he has said in the Scriptures. That’s why Jesus doesn’t just show up on the road to Emmaus and say, ‘Hi, it’s me!’ Instead, he takes considerable time to deliver a lengthy biblical exposition in which he reinterprets God’s Word radically, in the light of his own life, death and resurrection.

Pete Greig
How To Hear God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022), p. 36.
(I heard it on Lectio 365 for April 27)

The Word of God

‘It is Christ himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to him’

C.S. Lewis
The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 3: Narnia, Cambridge & Joy, 1950-1963, edited by Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007), p. 246.

On Adversaries

“Loving, forgiving, and doing good to our adversaries is our duty. Yet we must do this without giving up and without being cowardly. We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel. We shall do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate.”

-from a sermon preached by André Trocmé the sunday after France fell to the German attack in World War II


Lectio Divina for Resurrection Week

Back in 2020, I made a series of lectio divina readings for Palm Sunday through Good Friday. The title pages have 2020 dates; but there is nothing dated about the readings – except they are keyed to the scriptures that take us through that week leading up to Jesus’ resurrection. In the hope that they may be of use to you in worshipping through the week, I decided to make a convenient menu of links which you can use to refer to them.

Introduction

Palm Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Maundy Thursday

Good Friday

The links above are to Youtube videos that I made on my phone back in 2020 for the LBFC Devotions channel. (I intend to edit them into a podcast series also; but that’s not ready yet.)

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