Political jargon over the last decade has given us a new understanding of an old term. The term is ‘safety net.’
My first recollection of a safety net was at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus when it was still performing under the big top. Who could forget those daring acrobats balanced on the trapeze or high wire and, under them, a net. When the act was finished they would fall ...
The church has always lived between the times. We remember the time when Christ was born, died, and was raised, and we anticipate his return and the fulfillment of his Kingdom. In the meantime we live by faith in the truth of our memory and the certainty of our hope. Likewise, every individual life is a meantime existence. We remember and learn from our past, and we anticipate some future expectat...
Graham Greene writes in one of his novels, "If a man loves a place enough he doesn’t need to possess it; it’s enough for him to know that it is safe and unaltered...." (The Tenth Man, New York, Pocket Books, 1986, p. 89.)
The trouble is that we never seem to be able to love quite enough, at least not enough to be delivered from the unhappy desire to own our lives and almost everything that touche...
4. Wishing to Be Like God
Matthew 21:33-46
Illustration
D. Wayne Burkette
There is a legend about a simple man who was lifted from the gutter and magically granted three wishes. First he wished for material goods and forth with became very rich. Then he wished for understanding and soon became very wise. At last he used his third wish to express his desire to become as God, and immediately he found himself back in the gutter.
So it was with the wicked tenants. Dissatis...
