Communicating in Truth

The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips. Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, Sweetness to the soul and health to...
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Job and the Wild Duck

The lesson studies on Job are over, and there’s a new quarter beginning, but some scenes from Job just keep echoing in my head. Reading the endless...
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Humble Listening: A Courageous Act

Several brave people received their moments of fame in 2016. The film Sully was about Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who landed a jet on the Hudson...
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Once Upon a Christmas

Christmases of my childhood were magical and full of meaning. At the beginning of Advent each year, we dug special books out of the attic, and my mom...
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Are You on the Journey of the Wise Men?

The Christmas season is all about journeys. People are traveling in order to be home with family. Kids are heading to the grandparents' house....
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The Good and Honorable Pharisees

If Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had been New Testament scholars instead of country music singers, they probably would have used a different word...
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Longing for Good News about Bad...

Watch out, you shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, proclaims...
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Beastly Spirituality

One of the scenes from the Wizard of Oz that I remember from my childhood (the movie; I never read the book) was that of Dorothy and her friends...
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Stunted by Fear of a Slippery Slope

“An alert community will always subject its metaphors, especially its favorite metaphors, to critical analysis.”  -–Charles Scriven1 “There is no...
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Jesus as Host: Hospitality in the...

Forty years ago this fall, I rolled into Walla Walla as a new faculty member. That’s a marker worth celebrating. The only people I really knew then...
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