Drew Downs
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Truth
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5 min read
Truth (Day 12 of A Simple Lent) In a political campaign, it often seems like the biggest loser is sincerity and truth. It becomes easy for websites like FactCheck.org to parse every political statement or for confusions to blossom into controversies: such as fear of bias leading to a made up story of people chanting of…
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Am I to Come to You With a Stick?
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6 min read
Am I to Come to You With a Stick (Day 11 of A Simple Lent) As we get further into this letter to the church in Corinth, we are now starting to see what has Paul so mad. Not the specific stuff, that’s coming later. We’re getting the question of authority. As in the people are…
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Paving With Good Intentions
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8 min read
But that is the mission. Jerusalem is the goal. This is where it will be finished. This is where the glory of GOD will be revealed and death will not have the final word. How the Pharisees try to warn Jesus and he keeps going anyway Lent 2C | Luke 13:31-35 This is kind of…
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To Save Life Or To Kill
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5 min read
To Save Life Or To Kill (Day 10 of A Simple Lent) My absolute favorite part of Jesus’s teaching is his few teachings about Sabbath. I think dealing with them is an essential part of understanding Jesus. Sabbath law is at the core of Torah. The literal observance of the Sabbath day is important. More important,…
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New Wineskins
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4 min read
New Wineskins (Day 9 of A Simple Lent) One of the most familiar passages in scripture is Jesus’s famous line about not putting new wine into old wineskins. It’s one of those images with which I was always familiar, but it never fit in with my world. I mean, how many of us have a wineskin?…
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He Said / She Said
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4 min read
He Said / She Said (Day 8 of A Simple Lent) I’m not really sure if I’m supposed to like Joseph. His Dad, Jacob, was a jerk. He was a liar and a thief, who seemed to take advantage of the blessing of GOD. And even after wrestling with his creator on the banks of the…