Through the past two blog posts , I have held up a vision of the God who speaks in various ways and we as His people hearing from Him. That is the vision I want to put in front of us. The prophets heard from God, and their hearing is unique from ours as authoritative …
Returning to Square One: Eugene Peterson on the Essence of Christian Spirituality
Last Friday, I read a pointed, pastoral call to basic attention to God and His word throughout our lives, and it resonated so deeply with me that I wanted to share it. These words come from Eugene Peterson's essay "Back to Square One: God Said (The Witness of Holy Scripture)," included in a collection of …
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God’s words falling into us
In his book A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer relates an old Hasidic tale that examines the tension between the limitations within our current reality and the possibility of our hearts opening into a new reality. He writes: The pupil comes to the rebbe and asks, "Why does Torah tell us to 'place these words upon …
The Church is a Hospital for Sin-Sick Sinners: J. I. Packer from a Quest for Godliness
This past weekend in my message, "Friend of Sinners," I mentioned an article by J. I. Packer that I read many years ago in which he talks about the church as a hospital for sinners. In searching for it, I discovered that the article was actually an excerpt from Packer's book, A Quest for Godliness. I found …
Practicing Spiritual Direction [Working the Angles with Eugene Peterson, part 11]
Spiritual direction is difficult. Pastoral wisdom is not available on prescription. Every person who comes to a pastor with a heart full of shapeless longings and a head full of badgering questions is complex in a new way. There are no fail-proof formulae (179). Eugene Peterson brings this book, Working the Angles, to conclusion with attention …
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Matthew Erickson 