Meals can both unite and divide people. Jesus’ practice of eating with “unclean” people (Gentiles) challenged the Israelites’ food and cleanliness laws which kept them separate from others. The Lord’s Supper is the symbol…
The Church is like a bus, in that we don’t get to choose who’s on the bus with us; it’s God’s church and not ours. In the midst of diversity in the church, we…
Churches today are tempted to adopt a corporate model of the church, which can be a consumer-oriented approach focused on programs, numerical growth, and effectiveness. The early church showed a different model with the…
The Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of the armor of God as our way as Christ-followers to confront and disarm the powers and principalities at work in the world. Rich Villodas reminds us that…
The presence of evil in our world has a spiritual dimension, and there is a battle between the forces of good manifested through God as revealed in Jesus, and “principalities and powers” that manifest…
The transition from suffering to hope is possible when God is in our lives and when God’s love is in our hearts. An excellent example of this is the forgiveness and grace shown by…
Like those on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out, we ask “What does this mean for the Church today?” Let us keep working to “catch up” to the Holy…
Jesus does not leave his followers alone and abandoned, but gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit, who will always be present with them (and us). The Spirit provides a peace that is…
Peter’s encounter with Cornelius was a breakthrough in the inclusion of Gentiles into the early Church, which began as a Jewish community which obeyed Jewish purity and cleanliness laws. God put a comma where…
Jesus and his disciple Peter had a “reckoning” on the beach, where Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?” and tells him to “Feed my sheep.” Even though Peter denied Jesus in the Garden…
