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I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. [1 Timothy 1:12-14]. Among the many stories told by our friend, the master preacher/storyteller, Will Willimon, in his provocative, challenging, and entertaining Accidental Preacher: A Memoir (Eerdmans, 2019), is that of a “sophomore dream trip to Europe” in 1966, which Will says he…

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Rise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall let you hear My words.” And I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, attending to the task on the wheel. And if the vessel that he was making in clay in the potter’s hand was spoiled, he would go back and make another vessel as it fit in the eyes of the potter to make. And the word of the LORD came to me saying: “Like the potter cannot I do with you, house of Israel?” said the LORD. “Look, like clay in the…

Has a nation given up its gods though they are ungods? But My people exchange its Glory for what cannot avail. Be appalled, O heavens, for this, be shocked, altogether, desolate— said the LORD. For two evils My people has done: Me they forsook, the source of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold the water [Jeremiah 2:11-14, The Jerusalem Bible, translated by Robert Alter]. Cisterns—artificial reservoirs (usually underground) for storing liquids such as rainwater—are generally unnecessary in North Carolina. Portions of the state receive twice as much annual rainfall as does “rainy Seattle.” Some elevations in our Smoky Mountains “enjoy” up to 100 inches…

  Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” [Jeremiah 1:4-5]. Perhaps like me, you were “raised up” in a world that taught—that teaches—lessons in self-construction. To the extent that your own youth was anything like mine, you often heard statements like this from adults: “If you just put your mind to it, you can do or be anything you want.” Believing the wisdom in that statement, I studied hard through high school so that I could go to a first-rate college…

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! [Luke 12:49]. The church within which my brothers and I were baptized and “raised up,” Olney Presbyterian, formed in 1793 by half a dozen southern Gaston County (N.C.) families—including the Robinsons—was no more than half a mile from our mother’s home place, the D.D. Grier house on Old York Road. During the 1950s, because of the proximity of the church to our grandparents’ home—it was actually owned by our great-grandmother, “Granny Grier, who lived there as well—we’d sometimes eat “Sunday dinner” at the Griers. We’d also sometimes stop by on Wednesday evenings after Olney’s…

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” [Luke 12:32]. I’ve shared this story with some of you. It was originally related to me by Jane’s father, B.P. Albright, Sr., when I was his daughter’s 19-year-old fiancé (we were 20 when we actually married). You see, knowing that we would have finished just two years of college by the time we said our vows, both sets of parents promised that after August 28, 1971, they would continue to provide for Jane and me in the same manner as they would have if we had not decided to marry. To be…

And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”[Luke 12:17-19]. About two weeks ago, as I wandered around one of my favorite Durham/Chapel Hill haunts, our new Wegman’s, I had one of my all-too-common senior moments. I spied a familiar face from my years at AICPA (2007-2014), but try as I…

And Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will you really wipe out the innocent with the guilty?” [Genesis 18:23]. For several thousand years or so, scholars, clergy, and laypeople alike have pondered the nature of God. We have wondered if God is strangely anthropomorphic on the one hand, or, as Karl Barth would so eloquently write during the 20th century, “wholly other.” Anthropomorphic evidence can be seen in God’s practice of walking and talking with the man and woman in the Garden [Genesis 2:8]. Other indications include God’s calling out to the first man, after he had eaten the forbidden fruit, “Where are you?” Genesis 2:10]—i.e., wouldn’t God already know? We…

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.”18:7 Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 18:8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate [Genesis 18:6-8, NRSV]. Let me repeat for you a story, a story you’ve no doubt already heard. It’s about a couple who lived several thousand years ago. His name was Abraham. Her’s was Sarah.…

This morning, during our weekly Bible Study, as we read Matthew’s account of the Crucifixion [Matthew 27:27-50], I shared a powerful, parable-like offering from C.S. Lewis regarding the level of God’s love. God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing … the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the medial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. If I may…