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the generous conversation: Matthew 7

March 17, 2018 by David Baer

We may live in a world with its horrors, yet we do not live in a horrible world.

There is goodness and gift aplenty amid these hills, in this city, within the troubled textures of this little life. Continue Reading »

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widows, friends, and enemies: Mark 12

March 6, 2018 by David Baer

The famous story of the ‘widow’s mite’ is a beloved slice of the gospels’ narrative testimony about Jesus. Her skinny little offering—amidst large and clanging competitors—touches a sentimental nerve in sympathetic readers. Continue Reading »

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weakness’ after-strength: Isaiah 50

February 23, 2018 by David Baer

Isaiah turns often to speak of the storied, shadow-kept ‘servant of YHWH’ with clear indication that what the figure represents is a people. In about equal measure, the ‘servant’ is figured as a person. Continue Reading »

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unforgotten: Isaiah 26

February 12, 2018 by David Baer

Are those who die unjustly simply to be forgotten?

In a world like ours—battered and bleeding—it is for too many the farthest thing from an arcane question. The rubble of battlefield and broken neighborhood covers far too many lifeless bodies for that.

It has become for us, as it was in the beginning, a question most real. Continue Reading »

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fraternal reversal: Isaiah 41

January 18, 2018 by David Baer

The book called Isaiah quietly places layer atop rhetorical layer as it ambles forward in the general direction of glorified Zion.

By the time one arrives at the stirring reversal of fortunes that takes the steering wheel firmly in hand at chapter 40, we have encountered the expression רעהו with a suffixed preposition multiple times. It has described the action of a derelict or judged person to his fellow or to his companion. In the Isaianic way, this otherwise neutral expression has accrued with each new layer a discernibly negative connotation. Continue Reading »

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the critical irrelevance of channels: 1 Corinthians 3

January 12, 2018 by David Baer

Because we are fashioned as embodied creatures, we live an embodied life and are shaped, damaged, and nurtured principally by other embodied people. They have names and faces.

Sometimes they lead us close to our Maker. Sometimes they provide such direction and sustenance that we cannot imagine life without them.

Or truth beyond them. Continue Reading »

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urban desire: Hebrews 11

January 11, 2018 by David Baer

It is difficult, in these mangled days, to focus. One lives distracted and, therefore, enslaved to the mundane blur that swirls on all sides without pause.

Yet not all have lived this way, and not all must.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13–16 ESV)

I come uneasily to this company of exiles, for I love this soil, this place, this fecund rooting. Continue Reading »

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creative collaboration: Psalm 104

January 10, 2018 by David Baer

The poet who stands behind our 104th psalm contributes to a compendium that adds to YHWH’s activity in history a celebration of his work in creation. It is a beautiful oddity.

Curiously, two features of divine participation in creation interweave the psalmist’s celebration. Continue Reading »

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the ongoing: Psalm 103

January 9, 2018 by David Baer

Psalm 103 insists that we live in a world in which clear vision leads to gratitude.

Blessedness is reality. The failure to see this means that someone has gone blind, perhaps even succumbed to a lie.

Yet gratitude requires a choice—and even that ongoing choice which becomes a discipline—because for some unnamed reason we are liable to forget. Blessing is a fact on the ground, yet gratitude seldom occurs in nature. It requires practice, discipline, even culture, lest blessing go unanswered by thanksgiving. Continue Reading »

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the whole shootin’ match: Colossians 3

January 9, 2018 by David Baer

It is impossible to imagine the ethical lifestyle towards which the apostle Paul encourages the churches without reckoning with the prominence of gratitude.

Simply put, thanksgiving is a powerful  motor. Apart from whatever else it represents, thankfulness fuels and in some ways summarizes the way of the believer in Jesus Christ. Continue Reading »

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