The Commandments of God

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” John 14:21 (ESV)

There are roughly 613 instructions regarding how to live like a child of God in the Torah. The New [...]

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10 Reasons to Live in Community

I haven’t finished reading this post nor checking out the blog, but I figured perhaps you could help me…
Ten Reasons to Live in Community
Living Out the Gospel of the Kingdom: Ten Reasons to Live in Community

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Rob Bell – Rain

Rob Bell – Rain

If you haven’t seen any of the Nooma videos yet, you ought to. This is one of my favorites.

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A Poem

Here’s a poem by Ben Witherington III that I greatly appreciated.
 
We demand the evidence,
A clear and certain sign,
We show no bit of reticence
Ask God to please divine.
 
Here a little miracle,
Or there a stellar light
To shine upon our darkness
And give us all insight.
 
But what if God’s not hidden,
Not remote or too aloof,
What if we’re just blind
And [...]

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Hmm

Have you ever wondered…

bLaugh » Archive » If a Blog Falls

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Words for Torah

In Psalm 119:129-136 the psalmist uses seven different words to describe the Torah: today we look at the second word. It is “word/s” (devar). Psalm 119:130: “The unfolding of your words gives light;it gives understanding to the simple.”
Jesus Creed » Bible words: Word
It is great to read a traditional evangelical scholar focusing on Psalm 119! [...]

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Gazelles

Have you ever wondered why Jewish boys were prohibited from reading the Song of Songs until age 13?  I distinctly remember the first time I heard this as a young adolescent.  Guess what I went home to read that evening?  I also recall my disappointment…”is that all there is to it?”  Now, of course, I realize that [...]

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Blessings

The practice of blessings in our life has been pretty dramatic; although, in another way, it has been very subtle. I suppose the best way to describe it would be to say that the cumulative effect of the subtle changes has been significant.
The concept of bestowing blessings is incredibly old. The first instance we find [...]

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Why Community?

A community that heals is a community that believes the gospel provides forgiveness of all sin, a guaranteed future of perfect community forever, and the freedom now to indulge the deepest desires of our hearts, because the law of God is written within us—we have an appetite for holiness.
…
Either we can live as unique members [...]

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Evangelism

When God forgives us for violating his design, he pours his life into us; and that restores our capacity to connect, first with him, then with others. He makes us alive with the actual life of Christ. The energy with which Jesus heard and obeyed the Father, the impulses that lay behind everything he did…are [...]

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Avinu Shebashamayim

For those who regularly pray from the siddur, I believe you will find this of interest. I have often pondered the specifics of how The Lord’s Prayer fit in to the liturgy of Messiah’s day. Over on the FFOZ blog, Aaron Eby has made a compelling case that the Lord’s Prayer was prayed [...]

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Rosenzweig & the Shaping of Thought

In his essay about Franz Rosenzweig, Rudiger Lux writes the following as a summary of the third section of Rosenzweig’s climactic book The Star of Redemption. The third section is titled Gestalt or “The Form”:
In The Form he (Rosenzweig) poses the questions: Does all that happened in the past culminate only in the present, [...]

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