As we approach the end of another church year, the focus turns to Jesus’ return at the end of the world. In Luke, chapter 21, verses 5-32, Jesus urges us to do two things to prepare for his return: watch the signs that will precede the end and watch ourselves to be sure we are…
Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483. His birth went unnoticed by the world. But by the time he died in 1546, Martin Luther had become the most well-known person in Europe. The Reformation he ignited brought about profound changes in the church and in society. But how would the church be different if…
As we get farther and farther away from the previous century, there are more people who don’t believe the terrible things that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II. In some cases people are not even being taught about the Holocaust. In other cases they are being told that…
The basic idea behind this motiff is that, just as grapes are crushed in a winepress to produce wine, Jesus was crushed on the cross outside the city of Jerusalem to erase all of God the Father’s wrath because of our sins. Jesus is not nailed to the cross. Instead the cross lays on Jesus’…
A young woman was stunned by the conditions of the troops when she visited the Jockey Hallow encampment during the Revolutionary War. Ten thousand unwashed, poorly-clothed, poorly-fed, American soldiers were packed into drafty log huts during the bitter cold winter. She brought up the topic of the poor conditions of the troops with one of…
The appointed Gospel reading for All Saints Day is Matthew 5:1-12, a passage that is often referred to as “The Beatitudes”: [1] Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. [2] And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: [3] “Blessed are the…
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. [7] And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who…
He taught me a new way to detach stamps from envelopes. As a boy I had been taught to soak the envelopes in water for several minutes until the stamps came off. He showed be how, instead of soaking them, you spray the stamps with a citrus cleanser and they come off almost immediately. We…
The federal government just finished re-naming over 650 of its properties. Why? Because each of these places had in its name a derogatory term for a Native American woman. And the job isn’t finished yet. In 2021 the Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force was established whose job it is to find and eliminate all derogatory name…
The Gilded Age was a time between 1870 to 1900, roughly from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century, when the rich were very, very rich. The railroads and other industries had made men very rich and their wives tried to outdo each other in spending extravagantly. Just being rich…
Mirror Neurons 