Month: April 2024

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road — the desert road — that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet [Acts 8:26-28, New International Version]. From time to time, I’ve shared several of the many Bible stories that the children at Olney Presbyterian Church (Gastonia, NC) re-enacted during…

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want [Psalm 23:1]. I have a push-pull relationship with the Twenty-Third Psalm. Oh, I recognize that if one asks 100 people which Psalm is their favorite, 97 will say “the 23rd.” Acknowledging its popularity, the Revised Common Lectionary includes the Psalm six times in its three-year cycle. As I have shared before, my most long-lived recollection of the Psalm is drawn from a Monday evening in 1957, when Todd and I stood on the Robinson School stage with our first-grade classmates and, having memorized the Psalm—King James Version, I’ll have you know—recited it more or less in unison before an assembly of…

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have" [Luke 24:37-39, New International Version]. During my childhood and adolescent years at Olney Presbyterian in Gastonia, I was taught by elders in both a Presbyterian and familial sense that, at the time of the resurrection, our “resurrected bodies” would not be plagued with the sorts of pains, wounds, scars, and imperfections found in our former earthly…

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common [Acts 4:32]. Perhaps many of you have heard the one about the American Protestant who was rescued by sailors after he had been stranded alone for six years on a remote Pacific island. As the man gathered his meager belongings to join the sailors on board their ship, one of the sailors pointed to three small structures erected near the beach, asking the man what had been their function. The marooned man proudly pointed to the largest of the…