Jonah 3:1-10; Romans 12:1-8 Today’s passages are two of my favorites from scripture – the story of Jonah preaching in Nineveh and Paul’s exhortation to the house church in Rome, “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” These are provocative passages which beg the question, “Is change…

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho Jericho, Jericho Joshua fit the battle of Jericho And the walls came tumblin’ down… As a child, I loved that hymn. It was about bravery and soldiers and knights, and it reflected my own boyish interest in cowboys and Indians and the Cold War environment of my childhood. The…

Genesis 6:18-19; Matthew 6:25-26 I first became a theologian, a person who studies about god, when I was five years old. My parents went away to a church convention and my brother Bill and I stayed with a pious Baptist lady, Bertha Orr. She had a little poodle, named Taffy, and I played with Taffy…

Psalm 139 Luke 18:1-8 When I was a boy, church and baseball were the center of my life. The son of a small town Baptist minister, I spent hours in the church following my Dad around after school and on Saturdays. I went to Sunday school and children’s choir, and got my first job, dumping…