One peril of visiting a new church comes when it is time to pray. At least if the congregation of a traditional flavor they will wrap up with something like “Now let join our voices in the prayer Christ himself has taught us, saying…” It all goes fine for a while: …Father… …Name… …kingdom… …will… …daily […]
How to Organize Your Faith (Heidelberg Catechism Q24)
Shhh! A whole lot of Christians are quietly afraid that someday, someone will ask them about their faith. We need some outline points, like the pegs on a coat rack. No hooks and you just have a pile of stuff on the floor. Add a row of pegs and you can hang up a whole lot of stuff […]
How Do You Know That? (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 19)
You and I were born in an age shaped by scientific thinking. We find it hard to accept that there might be ways of knowing other than through science — the proof of hypotheses through experimentation. It is a sort of cultural mythos, this devotion to science. It is a religion without a temple. We […]
Finding a Life-Giving Approach to the Bible (part 7, conclusion): Process & Goal
And so we come to the end of the classic book on lectio divina by Guigo II (d. 1188), The Ladder of Monks. The idea of a ladder is key to understanding his approach to the Bible — despite all the food metaphors I’ve noted in these posts. He might have done better still with a spiral […]
Finding a Life-Giving Approach to the Bible (part 6): Contemplate Upon It
Contemplation is when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.” That is Guigo II (d. 1188) talking about the fourth and final step of lectio divina, the spiritual reading of Scripture. In his classic little book he compares the process to […]