If there is one word in Scripture that I wish English translations could do a better job for it would be in the very first petition of the Lord’s Prayer. “Hallowed be your name.” Nobody says “hallowed” in ordinary conversation — so day after day, week after week, a whole lot of Christians pray for […]
A Little Bit Mysterious
I have always liked a mystery. In my reading that has led me to enjoy Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Lord Peter Wimsey” novels and Robert B. Parker’s “Spenser” series. I blush to confess the vast number of hours I used to spend watching the various incarnations of Law and Order. Love of mystery also shapes my […]
Who You Talkin’ To?
“Why did Christ command us to call God ‘Father’?” That’s question 120 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the first in a series of ten on the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. They asked the question 450 years ago, but it is still a good one — and timely now for reasons the authors never would have […]
Simon Says: “What Do You Need?”
Last week I was blogging about the guidelines for prayer offered by the Heidelberg Catechism and I whizzed right by one that some may find troubling. When we pray, says the Catechism, we are supposed to ask “for everything God has commanded us to ask for.” It sounds like we are playing the spiritual version […]
Putting The Pieces Together About Prayer
Some Christians can make prayer seem like bit of a puzzle. Not that they portray prayer as confusing — far from it. They make it more like a jigsaw puzzle: once you get each piece in the right place (and they only fit one way) the picture emerges automatically. In the puzzle theory of prayer […]