Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. Way (way!) back in high school, I was in chorus. It is interesting to me that, even though it was about 35 years ago, I can still remember well some of the songs we performed…

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. “Kill ‘em with kindness,” the old saying goes. According to the internet (which…

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. Jesus here is speaking to his disciples in the last hours of his life. Earlier, Jesus explicitly told his disciples that they would be hated by the world, precisely because of their faith in him. “If you were of the…

To the contrary . . . These are the words that Paul uses at the beginning of Romans 12:20 to encourage the church in Rome (and us, of course!) to NOT respond to hostility and evil behavior in the way that our broken nature typically leads us to respond. We are not of this world,…