I came across the quotation while studying for a message from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount on God's people living as light. As a pastor, I found these words convicting and encouraging. I hope you are blessed by them as well. The church leader should be equipped with all the virtues. He should be poor, so …
Becoming De-occupied with Ourselves: The Place of Desolation in Prayer (Friedrich von Hügel)
Every once in awhile I come across a work that is a hidden gem. Thanks to the recommendation of Eugene Peterson in his work Take and Read: Spiritual Reading – An Annotated List, I recently finished Baron Friedrich von Hügel's brief work, The Life of Prayer. In the midst of his seven facts concerning God and seven …
Jenny Odell on neighboring
This past weekend in my message at Eastbrook, "Living Like Light in the World," I referenced some words by Jenny Odell from her quirky and wonderful book, How to Do Nothing. If you care about the way the information economy is malforming us and the ways in which we willingly subject ourselves to it, you should …
The Lust for Seeing: from Josef Pieper
This quotation from philosopher and theologian Josef Pieper captured my attention over a year ago when I was preparing a series of messages for students on distraction and attention. Themes of distraction and attentiveness have become increasingly important to me as the information economy takes hold of our culture and shapes our lives more than …
Retelling Scripture: Pär Lagerkvist’s Barabbas
In the gospel telling of Jesus' journey to the cross, one small character catches our attention for an instant and then disappears from the rest of the biblical account. We read about him in Matthew 27:15-26: 15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they …
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Matthew Erickson 