Biblical · Reformed · Evangelical · Thought-Provoking
How did Calvin actually understand pastoral care? Willis works from Calvin's commentary on John 10, where Christ alone is the shepherd and human pastors serve only in a derivative sense, and shows what that subordination meant for the daily work of caring for souls.
The Christmas story turns on small things: an old couple visited by an angel, a young woman of little standing, a manger. Gatewood follows that pattern as a calling for the church: to love the small, since this is precisely how the Mighty One came to be among us.
Peterson watches rock climbers on a vertical 2,000-foot face and notices what looks reckless is actually patient: every move tested, ropes secure, basics never forgotten. He turns the image into a question for the Christian life: how often do we mistake competent ascent for spectacle?
Burgess works through baptism in the form of a parish dialogue: Martha worries the congregation doesn't follow up, Jerry's too busy, Lisa's not sure baptism matters, Max thinks it's mostly welcome. The conversation works toward a shared theology of what the church is doing when it pours water.
Gibbons grew up Catholic in Scotland, considered the priesthood as a teenager, and never imagined he would one day preach at the Augustinian cloister in Erfurt where Luther had taken his vows. The piece is a personal Reformation memoir written from inside the surprise.
Ray picks up Julian of Norwich's Showings, reads it again, and finds soteriology buried in the oddities of her sentences. The piece is about what happens when a theological text actually does its work: the reader walks under an electric arch into a different world.
DiscipleshipHylton encouraged his congregation to mark the Reformation's 500th anniversary, then noticed that the popular media coverage focused mostly on Luther's failings. He pulls three pastoral insights from Luther's example, the kind that hold up regardless of what we think of his weaker moments.
Fifty million American adults attend small groups, a practice that would have been heresy in the Middle Ages. Duff traces the line from the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers through Hebrews 7 and 1 Peter 2 to the Bible study meeting in someone's living room tonight.
A tomato plant's tag promised that 'deep roots produce abundant fruits,' which Hurley took as a parable of Reformation heritage. The piece is a pastor's reflection on how five-century-old roots actually feed the present, and what fruits a Reformed congregation might still expect to see.
Bruce Metzger spent his career as one of America's foremost biblical scholars but began as a Sunday School superintendent. These late-career reflections on what he would do if he had a classroom again are practical, simple, and clear-eyed about what religious instruction is actually for.
Proverbs uses contrast to teach: life or death, wisdom or folly, no comfortable middle. Hering brings the Proverbs' grammar of formation to bear on the painful experience of catechized children who walk away anyway, and finds the tradition has more to say than parents often imagine.
Forty years into preaching, Johnson offers ten convictions about what it actually takes to do the work well. Romans 10 frames the piece: how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?
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