A Pastor in The Northwest

This past week I was in Nevada visiting my son Dylan and his wife Kinzi.  The weather was sunny and we had a great time.  One of the places we visited was an older casino that had a bowling alley.  To get to the bowling alley, however, one had to walk through the endless electronic slot machines. Have you ever seen people playing these? They never look like they are having much fun.  Maybe one reason why is the feeling of losing money. In truth, slot machines are not great odds and, as they say, the house always wins. Odds.  That made me think about Biblical prophecy.  I know that seems like a leap, but, stay with me.  I did a quick search for all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and, well, here's what one source stated:   The story of Jesus saturates the meta-narrative of the Bible, and prophecies of His first advent are found throughout the Old Testament. Allusions to Him also come up in micro ways, as many people and events hint at the work He would accomplish. One scholar, J

"God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment..." -Psalm 82:1 (English Standard Version) I recently read a book recommended by a colleague of mine called The Unseen Realm by Michael S. Heiser where he delves into this mysterious yet present 'divine assembly' or council. It sort of blew my mind a bit. Why? Well, I've not really looked that closely at this supernatural realm where God exists as well as other divine beings. Sure, I know of angels, demons, and of course, satan/the accuser, etc. but there seems to be much more to it. The Ancient Near East cultures had at least a belief in this collection of divine beings. For the ancient Hebrew Israelites, Yahweh was the ruler supreme with complete authority. For me, even though I'm still wrestling with this idea, I can see how this would relate to the 'spiritual warfare' that Paul speaks of at the end of the letter to the Ephesians. If Yahweh gave both supern

Happy eclipse week folks - yeah, that happened again - this time not so much in Oregon. Speaking of Monday, I was walking to the church building and heard a racket - like metal scraping on the rock. Lo and behold, a landscaper with a truck and trailer was driving by rather quickly with the entire trailer tailgate down - scraping the asphalt. Think fingernails on a chalkboard folks...yikes. It reminded me of paying attention to details and not being in such a hurry that important things are missed. I was often the one on our family farm back in the day that forgot to close the barn door or latch the gate. That meant animals got out - almost every time. This past Sunday's sermon was in the good shepherd passage of John 10 where the good shepherd takes care of the details for the sheep - protection, feeding and care, guarding against danger, and yes, making sure that gate is closed! In that, Jesus, the good shepherd, is our doorway to all the good, abundant life we're made for.

There was a song stuck in my head recently that drove me a bit crazy. The song was "One Thing Leads to Another" by a British band from the 1980's called The Fixx. I guess it was originally a song that was addressed to wishy-washy, talk only politicians. I didn't know that though when I heard that song on the radio. Today I'm thinking about that idea of one thing. What is one thing I can do or say to honor God, and love people? Of that many things, what's the best one or the main one right now that we could do given our time, talents, resources, abilities, etc.? I found a handful of 'one thing' statements in the New Testament that kept me on this little rabit trail. For instance, when Jesus tells that rich young ruler guy in Mark 10 that he needs to sell it all, give it to the poor and follow Him or when Jesus tells Mary that Martha has chosen the one thing necessary - the good portion when she sat at Jesus' feet in Luke 10. But I came to Paul'