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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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changing room: Colossians 3

January 9, 2018 by David Baer

We are being saved from what we were.

We come in from the muck and the cold and slowly, with muscles labor-sore, drop our clothing on the mudroom floor. It is foul, cold, unsheltering stuff, redolent with things we would forget, toils that damaged others and ruined ourselves. They fall, articles of clothing that once provided some modest protection, no longer needed in this new, warm, nourishing house. Continue Reading »

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can’t help you: 2 Corinthians 4

January 2, 2018 by David Baer

The apostle Paul’s anguished struggle for reality in his relationship with the Corinthian believers probably explains the precision he seeks in this letter. Theirs may well have been one of those uneasy friendships where everything that can go wrong does. In a crazy-making ecosystem like this, the slightest ambiguity takes a direction that is the opposite of what is intended.

In ordinary life, the word ‘dysfunctional’ comes without effort to our lips. It probably applies here. Continue Reading »

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blind(ed): 2 Corinthians 4

December 30, 2017 by David Baer

We are not pawns. Yet we are players in a Great Game in which everything is at stake and large powers move amid shadows and light.

We do not move alone, do not decide alone, do not—no matter our pretensions—create our own future, alone.

Theologians, as they should, make passable stabs at systematizing all this. They boil it down into its crystallized form. Some of us outliers memorize these schemata. It hardens into backbone, sometimes, allowing us to live, flex, thrust, chase with the kinds of agile coherence that a healthy body manifests.

But in reality, redemption’s story is a drama, not a code. Continue Reading »

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public: 2 Corinthians 4

December 29, 2017 by David Baer

This business of Christian witness in a world gone mad is exquisitely complex. And beautiful.

Balance is required, a certain astute way with a dance.

Why did I once think things were simple, easy, and clear? Continue Reading »

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