The gospel paradox asserts itself in the readings. The author of life is put to death. The sinner is forgiven. The ghost has flesh and bones.

Note to preachers who want to keep their jobs and not risk their lives in the process: Don’t lift your preaching text from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter, Stephen, Barnabas, and Paul all tend to make very fine speeches reported in this work.

When my kids were little, if they fell down and hurt themselves, they would usually run to my wife or me to show us their “boo-boo.”

The 1987 Danish film Babette’s Feast tells the story of two sisters in a remote 19th-century Danish village who never marry and live a rigid life dominated by their father, the pleasure-denying pastor of their austere church.

We turn to God to ask for the forgiveness God has promised us.

Obedience calls for a listening and discerning heart.