Many years ago I served a church in St. Louis. One day I received a call from Governor Ashcroft’s office inviting me and our staff to attend a speech that was to be given by President George H.W. Bush on NAFTA. I said that I’d take 10 tickets and our staff put the date on…
Category: Kingdom of God
Hidden Treasure
We are unapologetically fascinated by treasure. We attend movies such as The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, the National Treasure Movies, Indiana Jones Series and Pirates of the Caribbean that captivate our imaginations and foster a spirit of discovering treasure of incredible worth. From the archeologist to the modern day treasure hunter to the Saturday…
Taking Over
The twin parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven, found in Matthew 13:31-33, describe the nature of the Kingdom of God. What is the nature of the Kingdom? 1. The Nature of the Kingdom is UnassumingThe initial appearances of the kingdom seem small and insignificant, but result in something large and significant. The seed…
The Wheat and the Weeds
Anyone who has observed lawns and landscaping is well aware of the ongoing turf battle with weeds. When we moved to Arkansas, we bought a house that had been unoccupied for two years. In a cost cutting move, the builder chose to lay sod around the structure of the house and to seed the rest…
Improving Soil Conditions
My wife loves to work in our landscaping. She would consider this one of her hobbies, and she’s very passionate about it. Because she loves working in the flower beds, I get the privilege of helping out. Last week Lisa began working on building another flower bed. Upon its completion we will have completely encircled…
Soil Types
In the Parable of the Sower, one discovers that the farmer is the same and the seed is the same. The soil is the difference, which becomes the focal point of the story. In Jesus’ interpretation of the parable in Matthew 13:18-23, he plainly describes the four soils which are distinguished based on their reception…
The Parable of the Sower
We have a landscaping issue at our house. We have two spots in the flower bed in front of our home that literally won’t grow weeds. Usually the dirt around new construction is not the best, so we thought we needed to simply improve the soil. We did so by adding sand and peat moss,…
Thinking about the Kingdom
In thinking about my present series on the Kingdom of God, Ken Lumley suggested this classic clip from Dead Poet’s Society to help our understanding of how we are to think about the present Kingdom of God in light of all that we have been previously exposed to…
The Reality of the Present Kingdom, Part 3
When our eyes are open to see, and our ears are open to hear, and our minds are attune to conceive and perceive, we are aware of the tangible reality of the present Kingdom of God right now in our midst. We find that Jesus is accessible today as a reality and not merely a…
What is a Parable?
When I began planning the Right Now series on the Kingdom of God, I did what I always do…I took a shopping trip to my favorite store, Amazon.com. When I searched the Amazon site for available resources regarding the Kingdom of God I discovered good news and bad news. The bad news first. I was…
