Author Archives: James Ernest

Choosing leaders (Luke 6:12–16)

Luke, like Matthew and Mark, tells of Jesus’s selecting twelve of his disciples for a special roles in service-leadership. John doesn’t bother with the appointment of this dozen. (See Matthew 10:1–4; Mark 3:13–19.) Luke tells it a little differently than Matthew and Mark. Like Mark, he tells us that Jesus went up a mountain toContinue reading “Choosing leaders (Luke 6:12–16)”

Jesus and the Make Israel Holy Again movement

We keep rereading scripture (and other classic texts, but I’m especially interested in scripture) because they strike us differently as our own circumstances change. This morning Luke 6:6–11, which in some seasons has just been for me a Standard Bible Story, smacked me. There was a startling, then painful, recognition, not as in “Oh, IContinue reading “Jesus and the Make Israel Holy Again movement”

The lord of all sabbaths is a fearsome surgeon

In recent days, my mind is continually recalled to Hebrews 4:12 by things that I read elsewhere in Scripture. In Hebrew 4, the writer ponders the Israelites regarding whom the Lord swore, “They will not enter into my (sabbath) rest!” Why not? because when they heard his voice, they were embittered and rejected it, hardeningContinue reading “The lord of all sabbaths is a fearsome surgeon”

Seeing unexpected things (Luke 5:17–26)

In Luke 5:17–26, we have the story of a paralytic who was brought to Jesus for healing. There was such a crowd around Jesus in the house where he was teaching that the friends who brought the paralytic resorted to letting the man down through the roof to get him into Jesus’s presence. They reallyContinue reading “Seeing unexpected things (Luke 5:17–26)”

“The old is nice”: Jesus meets the reflexive conservatives

I have not really reckoned seriously with the parable of the wineskins (Matt 9:14–17; Mark 2:18–22; Luke 5:33–39), and I probably need to. Anyone who is bemused as I am with the various ways in which the labels “conservative” and “progressive” are adopted as self-identifiers and hurled as other-blamers in American politics and religion probablyContinue reading ““The old is nice”: Jesus meets the reflexive conservatives”

The American Abyss, by Timothy Snyder

The American republic is in serious danger. That danger will not dissolve when Joe Biden is inaugurated as president. That danger will not dissolve if Donald Trump is sent to prison or has a heart attack and dies tomorrow. What follows here is an article published in The New York Times Magazine on January 9.Continue reading “The American Abyss, by Timothy Snyder”

Fearing and laughing: Psalm 52 and the demise of Trump

The more usual, expected phrase is “fear and trembling.” But there comes a time for fear and laughing. Psalm 52 contemplates the fate of the powerful person who is evil and boastful, contrasting it with the faithfulness of God toward the righteous, meaning the people who live in covenant relationship with God.

A statement from Denver Seminary president Mark Young regarding recent events

Here I simply wish to quote and recommend a statement posted on January 8 by Denver Seminary president Mark Young. Against the background of many unwise statements issued by other putative evangelical leaders, his stands out. It neither endorses nor condemns particular politicians or parties by name, but it delivers a serious, substantive admonition—and exemplifiesContinue reading “A statement from Denver Seminary president Mark Young regarding recent events”

By the dawn’s early light

What a day! What a night! Early this morning, these words come to mind: O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?And the rocket’s red glare, theContinue reading “By the dawn’s early light”