Liz Cooledge Jenkins

Tag: church

  • These Lines

    I resonated with much of Austin Channing Brown’s recent post about “unity” to her e-mail newsletter “Roll Call.” Austin encourages her readers to be aware of ways we might be asked to participate in a kind of unity that works against justice rather than for it. You can check out the post here if you’re…

  • Evangelical Pastor John

    And the crowds asked John, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him,“Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no…

  • Authority Issues?

    Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all…

  • Where have all the young people gone?

    For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. -John the Baptist (Matthew 3:9b) Right after John tells a bunch of religious leaders that claiming a lineage from Abraham can only get them so far, he declares that God is able to raise up children for Abraham…from stones.…

  • Spiritual Heritage

    And you should not think to say among yourselves, “We have Abraham as father.” -John the Baptist (Matthew 3:9a) The Pharisees who came against John’s baptism thought that they did not need to “make fruit worthy of repentance,” because they could trace their lineage back to Abraham. They claimed Abraham as the forefather of their…

  • Brood of Vipers (Part 1 of 2)

    But when John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7, NRSV). When I first read this verse, I wasn’t sure what to make of the thought that a bunch of Pharisees and Sadducees came…

  • Unsatisfying Apologies

    And they were baptized by John in the Jordan river, confessing their sins. (Matthew 3:7) Confession can be a vague thing. It might sound like someone is confessing to a crime, or confessing their love. It might conjure up images of a confessional booth in a Catholic church, where a priest listens through a little…

  • Paul the Idol

    Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region along the Jordan went out to him. (Matthew 3:5) One of the church-y things churches sometimes talk about (because church-y people like to make up new words) is being “attractional” vs “missional.” Sometimes it feels like there is a kind of tension between the idea of…