Darkened Glass Reflections

Category: Bible meditations

  • Your Way AND His Way

    As He healed him, Jesus said, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” Jesus encouraged him to go home with his healing. Instead, Bartimaeus “followed him on the way.”

  • Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Looking Ahead: New Article

    I just posted a new article on this site, entitled “Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Looking Ahead.“ This is the text of the sermon that I preached this morning at Half Hollow Community Church in Dix Hills, NY. The nondenominational church was celebrating its 134th anniversary, and I was asked to fill the pulpit. The minister, Rev.…

  • Through a Glass Darkly

    The concept that believers see “through a glass darkly” should encourage us. Questions often assault our faith: “Why? What are you doing to me, God? When will you do what I thought You would?” These are the questions that shake our faith, perhaps more so than the intellectual or philosophical challenges to our faith. The…

  • Passion and Passivity

    “Passivity” starts with the same five letters as does “passion.” Yet, these words are virtual opposites. Someone who is passionate cannot be passive at the same time, about the same thing.

  • Cheap Grace or Transforming Grace?

    German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined a phrase for such a distorted understanding of grace. He called it “cheap grace.” In his classic devotional, The Cost of Discipleship, he spoke of it as preaching “forgiveness without requiring repentance,” offering “communion without confession” and “absolution without contrition.”

  • Faithfulness in Hard Times

    We serve an eternal God who created infinite space and a vast universe. Yet, we often have the audacity to think we can dictate or define the outcome of our obedience when we go through trials.

  • New Year’s Day sermon

    This is a sermon and article I wrote several years ago, but the message is worth coming back to every year. I considered that the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, was referred to as the “Feast of Trumpets” in the Old Testament. Reflection on how trumpets were used in the Bible, especially the Old Testament,…

  • New Year’s Day: A Time for Change?

    “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the…

  • Reflections on the Feast of St. Stephen

    It is a little odd that the church calendar has the Feast of St. Stephen on December 26, immediately after Christmas Day. One day, we celebrate the birth of our Savior; it has become THE fun day on the church calendar, especially in terms of how we celebrate it in our society. The very next…