Why read the Bible in a year?


Why read the Bible in a year?




Point being: the Bible is one messy book.


The Lectionary


  • What is your favorite part of the Bible to read?
  • How often do you choose to read your Bible?

Fun Friday: What does the Bible say about having pets?


Just a few weeks ago, after reflecting on the antics of one crazy cat Gizmo:

along with her adopted sister Carrie:

I asked myself a question that had never crossed my mind in over three decades of having pets. What does the Bible say about having pets? Does God allow us to have pets or does the Bible contain passages that are against it? How are we supposed to treat our pets? How are we supposed to treat animals in general?

Genesis 1 contains some of the earliest descriptions of the relationship between humans and animals. It says:


‭‭It continues in Genesis 2:


‭‭‬‬These two chapters of the Bible, which probably deal with the relationship between humans and animals more than any other, have two specific things for us to consider.

  1. We have a specific relationship with animals – we are to rule over them. What does that mean? It means we are agents of order who care for animals and the rest of creation. (See here for a more specific discussion of the phrase used) The harshness of the word used comes from the harshness of living in nature. How kind and beautiful would you consider nature to be without electricity, motor vehicles, running water, and insulated houses. We pour boiling tar over nature every day just to make our drive from home to work smoother.
  2. Animals are not a substitute for family relationships. That is the implication of Genesis 2. It is not good for man to be alone, but there is no animal companion that can create true community the way another human being can. I suspect that the power struggle is such that an animal would only be able to love the human as a Lord and Master, not as a coequal. We need coequals to challenge our innate bent to make ourselves into little gods for all of creation.

This is by no means an exhaustive look at the biblical perspective on pets, but I think there is enough here to show that it is not only ok to have pets, God created us to care for the animal life around us. It also makes it clear that we are to be in charge of them, and not the other way around. I am quite certain I have been guilty on both counts from time to time (see pictures above).

How do the animals in your life affect your relationship with God?

What should I be reading in 2017?






What are you reading this year?

Keeping Your Priorities Straight While Changing the World – The Fourth Priority- Leave Each Place Better Than You Found It





Mark‬ ‭1:29-45‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There was a lot that Jesus did during the course of His ministry that may not have fit right into His mission of delivering us from the spiritual bondage we were held under. For example, Mark tells us that the second challenge He faced in His ministry, after facing down the evil spirits that approached Him, was helping relieve the physical sickness and injury that the people faced.

Physical brokenness often seemed to go hand in hand with spiritual brokenness, and many people believed that they were intrinsically linked. If you were sick, it was because you were a sinner. If you got hurt, it was because you were not good enough for the blessing of God. This has been a perennial belief that keeps coming back like a bad patch of weeds. Jesus had healing for the asking and He rarely gave any behavioral stipulations to those He healed. On and individualistic level, it may seem perplexing and contradictory to say that spiritual problems and physical problems are closely related, but one does not necessarily cause the other. If they do not share a causal relationship, how are they related?

The truth is, they do share a causal relationship, but not on and individualistic level. We live in a world full of billions of other people and their spiritual problems reach out and touch us causing us problems as well, both spiritual and physical. Likewise, our own sins have consequences for more than just us. They touch everyone. We all live in the same mess, no matter who or where we are in this world. So, when you look at the big picture, across the entire world, and across all of time, then yes, there is a causal relationship between sin and physical brokenness – but it’s all wound up like a wad of string the size of our world that we will never be able to fully unravel.

Jesus didn’t try to unravel it all. He started at the heart of that mess, dealing with the spiritual malady we all are affected by, and then He began to untangle one small piece at a time. Jesus did not finish the job, nor did He intend to. Instead, He showed us how we too, once we find the origin of our own sin problem, can begin unraveling the consequences around us, in the lives of those whose own lives connect with ours. Like the old Boy Scout motto, Jesus taught us to leave each place a little better than we found it.

We rarely can find the root sin cause of suffering in the lives of those around us, but we can be a witness to our own, when we find those links… But even then, our own sin is the the root cause of our suffering. The root cause originated in the Garden of Eden and had multiplied and compounded over time, long before it ever reached us. Again, it is not our job to unravel the whole thing. Jesus has dealt with the root cause and as we receive healing in our lives from the consequences of sin (whether or not that sin was of our own doing or not) we can pass that healing along to those around us. Jesus didn’t heal everyone and neither does He expect us to, but I think He will hold us responsible for those He brings into our lives. Our fourth priority is to work to clean up this collateral damage that sin has caused in our world, wherever we find it, and leave this world better than we found it.





facing the wilderness

waves underfoot

calling out beauty

whose name is remember

from the sea

and starlight

shining in darkness


here there are great giants

in these hills

and shadows that roam in the flesh

but greater still

are the fruits of faith


to which avails

the fisherman

who steps in

with both feet planted

upon the rock

unseen beneath

the trembling water