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“The Last of the Spirits”, illustration for Charls Dickens’ Christmas Carol by John Lech
The word “nice” is a rotten term. Originally it meant “foolish,” being an English word composed of two Latin terms: “ne” (“not”) and “scire” (“to know”). Over time it developed in meaning to its current form meaning something like “kind” or “good” but without any of the substance of kindness or goodness (see the entry for “Nice” at the Online Etymology Dictionary).
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p/c Anton Darius via unsplash
Listening to Dcn. Ben chant the Magnificat on Sunday, after hearing the whole story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation, I was reminded of a scene from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King:
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p/c Lukas Souza via unsplash
This past Sunday I took the 6:19 am flight to Kahului to preach and celebrate Holy Communion at Kingsfield Anglican Church. They have their service at 10 AM and All Saints has ours at 4 PM so it allows me to be at both parishes in a single Sunday —which is both exhausting and incredibly life-giving.
This week I preached two different sermons: one on Mark 7 at All Saints and one on Acts 9 at Kingsfield (they’ve been going through the Book of Acts for a while now and so I jumped-in where they were in the series). Since the folks at All Saints didn’t get to hear the sermon, I thought I’d post one strand of reflections from my preaching notes:
Read moreOur Gospel lesson from Sunday, Mark 1:21-28, is a great example of a chiasm. It is also a great example of how a chiasm, other than being a nifty piece of literary trivia, can help us understand and teach the Bible —can help us ask of a given part of scripture “what’s this mean?” and “what is the main point?”
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p/c: Jackson David
When Abraham lays Isaac on the altar, he hears a voice crying-out from heaven “Do not lay your hand upon the boy-child” (Gen 22:12). Abraham, in some sense, wasn’t planning to “lay his hand on the child” though, right? Wasn’t he going to sacrifice him? Why doesn’t the voice say “Don’t sacrifice the boy-child” instead? Certainly, that would have been more accurate.
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