Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 29, 2011
THE MORE LOVING ONE
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it if stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 28, 2011
based on 1 rating
| 1,369 views
DO IT AGAIN
G. K. Chesterton wrote: "Because children have abounding vitality, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged... They always say, 'Do it again,' and the grown-up does it again until he is nearly dead... But perhaps God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 27, 2011
THE MISSION
In the movie The Mission, 16th c. Jesuit monks have been working with the Guarani Indians, bringing them not only the gospel but agriculture and medicine and music. Across the ocean, the Treaty of Madrid transfers the land from Portugal to Spain. The Jesuits are evicted, the Indian
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 25, 2011
PERSECUTION MEANS HOPE
Genuinely persecuted Christians see judgment on their persecutors as a sign of hope. There is a story of Polish slave laborers working in munitions factories for Germany toward the end of WWII being bombed by allied planes. Some were killed, more were wounded. And yet
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 25, 2011
LET US LOVE THEM
Tony Campolo tells about some homeless teenagers from the Philadelphia streets who beat to death a Korean honor student doing graduate work in medicine at the U of PA. His parents came to the U.S. for the trial, and sat silently through his murderers’ entire trial.
At the end,
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
THE GOSPEL IS OFFENSIVE
There is something about the gospel that is inherently offensive. I don’t like saying that, and you may not like hearing it. But it is incontestable. The gospel puts some people off.
Take David and Roland, two high school friends of mine. David was what you might call a
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Jun 22, 2011
WE GET OUR PURPOSE FROM HIM
I have three watches. They had no meaning until I bought them; they get their meaning from me. I assign each one its meaning and value. I put this watch on a shelf as a showpiece; it's my show watch. This watch I wear for informal occasions and when working in the
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 22, 2011
THE BELLS TOLL FOR SOMEONE ELSE
We began the week with the story of the Chicago nightclub fire in which 21 people were killed as they rushed to the exit. The club had already been cited for overcrowding and other safety violations--like not enough doors and windows. What happened was that a
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 21, 2011
Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind:
"Openness and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 20, 2011
SPIRITUAL CARCINOGENS
When the Challenger went down nearly 20 years ago, the whole country went around draped in a dark cloud of mourning. Soon the shock gave way to outrage and scandal when it was discovered that cost-cutting and
carelessness components that didn’t quite meet the required
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 20, 2011
New Testament scholar D. A. Carson says:
"If I have strong views and articulate them, I am, by definition, intolerant. . . . The group that [claims it is right] is no longer perceived as standing for something and
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 18, 2011
FORGIVENESS: LIKE A BELL TOLLING
Corrie ten Boom once told of being able to forget
a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn’t sleep. Finally, she cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. She wrote this about
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 18, 2011
based on 1 rating
| 4,068 views
WHAT IS "DAILY BREAD"?
Martin Luther wrote in 1529:
"What does daily bread mean? Everything that nourishes our body and meets its needs, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, yard, fields, cattle, money, possessions, a devout spouse, devout children, devout employees, devout and faithful
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
based on 1 rating
| 2,070 views
POWER AND "KING OF THE HILL"
When I was a kid, we used to play a game called "King of the Hill." Everyone would get together and choose some place to be the "hill." Sometimes we were lucky enough to have a dirt mound to play on, but not very often. It might be a bed or a sofa, unless, of course,
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
Presbyterian/Reformed
Sermon Central