Lent Devotional Material that I am using!

I am using the devotional material put out by Seattle Pacific University...

Some preliminary things I love about it:
  • It is weekly instead of daily which means that I can miss a day or two and not feel behind. It also means that I can meditate on one section for a week instead of cramming more stuff into each day. Because it is not about new stuff, but about understanding the old stuff in a new/fresh way.
  • I know the person who wrote it and I would follow her spiritually into the depths and back: Celeste Cranston. I am in a small group with her and she is in-tune with it, if you know what I mean. She is working with the material, with the scholarship, and has an M.Div of her own. This is good stuff.
  • The material is mostly based off of Dr. Laura Sweat's scholarship in Mark. Dr. Sweat is a Markan scholar and faculty at SPU. I would put her up against anyone when it comes to the Mark material. 
So, I will be reading and blogging along to this material. If you want to read it as well, you can download it HERE (note: this link "HERE" is a .pdf).

Blessings!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review-ish of N. T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope"

Image
This is by far one of my favorite theological/ Christian books ever! I cannot be misunderstood. There is no hyperbole in my statement. This book rocked my world. I mean, I love C. S. Lewis. "Mere Christianity" changed my life. But if I can be a little blasphemous against Lewis, this book is better. It is better at framing a Christian Worldview and the entirety of the Christian life than the above mentioned. It also clears up the murky waters of Death, Dying and the after-life and what Wright wants to call something like "life after death after life." Basically this is a book about the Ultimate Christian hope (Resurrection into New Creation) and how that hope impacts our lives now! These are the types of questions Lewis sometimes missed on. I have two critiques. (1) I wish there was more scripture actually quoted. I know the verses he alludes to. I know many more that he doesn't. But more is better when you are challenging 200 years of Dispensationalism and
Read more

Mormonism and Christianity - Differences and Similarities

There is a rumor going around that people think Mormons and Christians are the same. This could not be further from reality. I have heard this many times and it usually comes from Mormons and people who overvalue tolerance at the expense of truly understanding. President Hinckley of the Mormon church personally taught this to all of the Mormon church and is it found on their official site . Let's get a few things straight at the start. I love my Mormon friends. I consider some closer than family. I think they are mistaken about some things, but love certainly triumphs over differences here. Second, this post is completely unpolitical. I could care less if a Mormon is president. I could really care less about politics at all in this point in my life. Ok... that being said, there are some huge differences between Orthodox Christianity and Mormonism. Differences that cause each group to be outside of the others tent - if that makes sense.   The biggest and most
Read more

Jesus for President (JFP): Section ! Part 2

Image
The idea of the Jubilee is something that has always blown my mind. This gift of God that the Israelites never opened is quite possibly the most radical idea ever commanded of human beings on a societal level. I love it on so many levels. This book, being about the church and empire, has an empire focus, but still awesome nonetheless. It says: "One of the most exciting of the Sabbath laws was applied every seven years. Just like the Hebrew people were supposed to refrain from working every seventh day so that their land, animals, and servants could rest (a marked contrast to their overworked life in Egypt), every seventh year, the Hebrew people had a celebration called the Jubilee (named after the jovel, a ram's horn that sounded to herald the remission), during which during which they would take the whole year off of work. During this one-year break, all the food that continued to grow in their fields was free for the taking for families who were struggling to get by (Exodu
Read more