Back In Co
Pictures from my time in New Mexico are up in Imaging . . .
I Want This Shirt
“here Is Your Coat” (remix)
Thought I had posted this . . . then I realized I never posted the original.
Such is life. Nothing is perfect. Neither is the song.
Here Is Your Coat (Remix)
Well you walked in disguised as a friend
But from how you touch my hand, I know it’s hard to pretend.
I invite you to sit, but you swear you won’t bend
And won’t break, and this visit was all a mistake.
Well, you will or you won’t, step into the cold
For we both know, our love don’t live here anymore.
So here is your coat, and there is the door
Unless you would you rather my love keep you warm?
Can we just breathe? Push it out for a minute and bring it back in?
You will or you won’t, step into the cold
For we both know, our love don’t live here anymore.
But your eyes sure do show that there is something more
But what, I do not know: I’ve never been here before.
But here is your coat. So here is your coat.
Do you really have to go?
So here is your coat: and there is the door:
But you don’t have to walk on through
You don’t have to put it on.
Real Christians Ask Questions
Sermon Summary:
Acts 17:17-32 - Paul’s Sermon on Mars’ Hill.
Paul spoke on Mars Hill to a group of gathered philosophers, judges, and generally wise people. He expressed to them the nature of God, but he never used a passage from scripture. Paul spoke to the surrounding masses through their own language, their own history, their own religion, their own poetry, their own philosophy. He told them the metaphysical, cosmological, relational, and religious nature of His God, and he did so through their own devices. Paul knew his audience and confronted and challenged them where they lived.
This is what we are called to do. If you do not understand why someone believes what they believe, you are pretty useless in talking to them. Knowing their beliefs only gets you so far: an argument. Understanding why the individual (not the collective) believes a thing brings you to conversation, and possibly change, in you and them.
If you tell someone they need Jesus but don’t know what they believe and why, why would they believe what you have is better? It is like telling someone your car is better than theirs when you haven’t even seen it with your eyes, not to speak of a test drive.
Sometimes your personal religious experiences and knowledge of the Bible means nothing, while an understanding of where the other person is coming for is everything.