In the fall of 2003 I took Dr. Lamontte Luker’s course in Old Testament Theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. A good portion of that course was on the thread of prophecy that runs from the first hint of messengers as prophets in Genesis 32 and first use of the Hebrew word for prophet, […]
In Genesis 12:1, God told Abram to get up and go, and Abram, setting an example for us all, got up and went, taking his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all their possessions, and headed for the land of Canaan. Abram, later to become Abraham, lived under a promise that God would bless him […]
It is probably personal frustration with difficulty remembering details that drives my compulsion to gather and organize information visually, preferably on a single page. I did a lot of that during my three years at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. One topic I covered, superficially of course due to limited space, was Old Testament Kings of […]
With rapid expansion of digital communication, we may be losing the capability of constructing informative or inspiring sentences, punctuated and capitalized correctly, composed of carefully chosen and correctly spelled words, and arranged in logically organized and sequenced paragraphs. Apparently the ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t have those skills either, but they seem to have had […]
An interesting way to view the history of The Church is through consideration of the struggle that has gone on through the centuries to understand and explain the unexplainable. From a Catholic viewpoint, possible explanations that were rejected by the church carry the label, “heresy,” meaning that while we have no full and complete and […]
April 15, 1951, I was baptized into the Christian faith at First Baptist Church, Maryville, TN. Today, Pentecost, June 12, 2011, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Columbia, SC. Thank you, Jesus, for this special manifestation of the gift of The Holy Spirit. CHAPTER ONE THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION […]
Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. – Mark 10:18 That is the response of Jesus to a man who had just knelt before him, addressed him as “Good teacher,” and asked about eternal life. I always have trouble identifying irony (I’m a chemical engineer, after […]
Now that regular church attendance is no longer default behavior for responsible citizens as it was when I was growing up in a small East Tennessee town, much is being written about how and why the remaining regular attendees choose the particular churches they attend. Denomination choices may well be based either on sticking with, or […]
I have been reading, for the second time, The Catechism of the Catholic Church and am now in Part Three – Life in Christ. The reading reminded me of one of the most challenging courses I took during three years at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Theology of Salvation, taught by Professor David Yeago. That was […]
I am always moved by the reading of the seventh chapter of The Acts of the Apostles in which Stephen, newly elected deacon facing accusations of blasphemy, summarizes the Old Testament story in a 1300 word homily. Two thousand years later it is easy to forget that the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, was the […]