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Stepping into Shadows – By Kay Hotaling             The Apostle John tells us in his first letter that we are invited into fellowship, Koinonia, or partnership with God and with the people of God and that the experience of this partnership depends upon “walking in the light.”  So we try to keep in the light; sometimes we do well and our lives and our partnerships flourish, but sometimes we step into shadows and our lives and our partnerships suffer.  Most of us are not tempted by absolute blackness, but I believe there are some subtle forms of darkness that we can easily sidle into without realizing what we are doing.  I’d like to suggest three that have been recent...

                  THE YEAST OF THE PHARISEES AND OF HEROD             In April Bob Hunter and I were in East Africa.  Each day we spent time studying the ideas of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.  One day we came across the statement of Jesus, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”  We have been intrigued about how we should respond to this warning of Jesus.  The following are some ideas that have been helpful to us.    Yeast in the New Testament is a symbol of the pervasive character of evil.  In Luke 12:1 it is the sin of hypocrisy.  In Matthew 13:33 it is error mixed with truth in the Kingdom of God.  In 1 Corinthians 5:8 it is the sins...

Some thoughts about a Core               I wrote the following at the request of a friend in Canada who asked what my experience had taught me in praying for a province or a country.            That we will begin to see our country as Jesus sees it and we will engage in prayer for the Kingdom to extend in the face of human and spiritual opposition. That God will lead the leaders and that they will care for their people with wisdom and compassion – especially the most needy. For laborers in every segment of the society who will give themselves to Jesus for the renovation of their hearts.  That as Kingdom of God people they will be with people to bring them the...

LOYALTY – A reflection from 2 Timothy four                               The Apostle Paul sat in chains in a Roman prison praying that the small struggling fellowships scattered all over the Roman Empire might survive, grow and reproduce.  In the same way that Jesus left the founding of the church in the hands of a few men, Paul was leaving the future of the church in the hands of a few men and women in each city.  He knew they must hold on to Jesus Christ with such allegiance that the nature and character of Jesus would permeate these fellowships.  Thus, one of the primary qualities he desired to see in them was loyalty:  To Jesus Christ, to his message, and to the...

LEARNING FROM ANGER              About twenty years ago Kay and I were driving along and I asked a question that got an answer I had not expected.  We had just been with a friend who was struggling with anger that was harmful to him and to those close to him.  Musingly I asked Kay, “Do you think I’m an angry person?”  There was a long silence and I knew I was in trouble!  Eventually she said something to the effect that I had a core of anger and by discipline I kept it under control so most people never saw it.  It only came out with her and our sons.  Very painful to hear, but it set me on a journey to let God deal with this in my life.              One of the first...

Community and Intimacy  “There has been a great growth of group movements in modern days.  They are attempts to put back into the church the koinonia, the fellowship of the Acts.  I used to think that the church was born out of Pentecost, but the church is not named until the eighth chapter of Acts.  It was the koinonia that was born out of the Pentecost, for the koinonia is mentioned in the same chapter with the coming of the Spirit: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship (Koinonia).    This koinonia was a close-knit fellowship across all racial and class boundaries, transcending age and sex.  It was a fellowship of the Spirit.  The group...

A Perfect Heart              “Let your hearts therefore be perfect before the Lord your God.”                These words of King Solomon to the people of God have challenged my thinking for years.  Recently a few of us have been studying what the Bible teaches about living in obedience to that command.  It has been very challenging!  What is our heart?             “The human heart, will, or spirit is the executive center of a human life.  The heart is where decisions and choices are made for the whole person.  Our life and how we find the world now and in the future is almost totally, a simple result of what we have become in the depths of our being—in our...

Let us consider together For over 50 years I have been a follower of Jesus – some of the time in ways that pleased him and others and sometimes so poorly it neither pleased him, me, or others.  However, I’ve stayed on the journey because of the women and men who have walked with me as we considered together many of the things Jesus lived and taught.  The number of these companions is too great to name all of them, but in the various postings it will be obvious that all of my writings are a result of asking questions of these companions and putting down the things we have found most helpful with the hope that they will be helpful to others as well.  And important to note...

To Finish Well Kay and I have been praying for ourselves and for many of our companions that we would “finish well”.  Frank Consalvo asked what that means.  My initial response was that I was going to let the Lord decide what that was, but then decided maybe God wanted me to think about it some more. The way I think about things is to get a few thoughts from the Word that might give light on a subject and then ask others, who are thoughtful, to expand on those ideas.  The following are some observations that I, and others, have on the subject. One of the ideas that came out in early discussions is that this is a subject that is actually more useful to younger men and...