She Thinks She's Witty

Yesterday I was in one of my seminary classes and we were telling stories. One of our assignments has been to do a formalist analysis of an Old Testament story of our choosing. Someone across the room picked the Cain and Abel story. She was telling her story and when she came to this verse, I could have sworn she was looking right at me: Genesis 4:6-7   (MSG)  God   spoke to Cain: “Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you've got to master it.” My religious background is not heavy in the language of sin and condemnation, but this verse really hit me in the chest. I feel like lately I've been sulking. Not literally, but spiritually. No one event happened to start me on my spirit sulk, but I've just felt it lately. And this verse just finally touched on something I hadn't even realized I had been holding onto. Now that I've b...

I preached Sunday on the book of Ruth and, in particular, Ruth 1:16-18 . I used several sources and had a lot of fun putting it all together.  An Act of True Love: The " Framily " Plan The story of Ruth was one of the first love stories I remember reading. Smack dab there in the middle of the Old Testament with its talk of war, famine, and disease, is a love story. Seemingly out of the blue. And just like any good Disney movie, Ruth starts with grief and loss. [1] Did you ever notice that about Disney? They like to clean up old fairytales and give them happy endings but they always start with some kind of sadness. Cinderella’s dad dies at the beginning and she’s left with her evil step-family. However, she finds her prince and lives happily ever after. Again, in Snow White , her father dies in the beginning, she’s left with the evil queen and she’s almost killed, but she finds her true love and lives happily ever after. Even the movie Frozen , which we’ll revis...