Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

It is all too easy to confuse politics and faith. It is all too easy to allow one to influence the other without noting the separation or which is calling the shots. In the aftermath, we look at the results of our preaching, teaching, and voting and are not exactly sure whom or what to blame. For believers in Jesus Christ, we are supposedly following Jesus and Jesus' teachings. Unfortunately, we often do nothing of the kind. Without our even recognizing it, we often fall into the trap of allowing faith to be a euphemism for belonging to a religious club. We surround ourselves with religious phrases and icons but never really allow the actual teachings of Jesus to make an impact on our lives. You see, Jesus calls us to things that are difficult to accomplish, even when we want to do so. He calls us to love our enemies. He calls us to visit the imprisoned. He calls us to befriend sinners. He calls us to forgive those who would hurt us, even when they respond by hurting us the sa...

Writing a book is a learning experience. At least in my case, it is more of a learning experience for the author than for the readers. Part of that is simply that the limits of a book do not lend to incorporating many discoveries that lie beyond the scope of the book. I began writing on the economic teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures by doing searches for various terms, but soon realized that I would need to read the text verse by verse to pick up on other economic themes that were not expressed in terms of gold, money, poverty, and wealth. Economics is about more than our forms of money. It includes the creation of and distribution of wealth. In my study, I soon saw that the consistent comments against the fertility cults in and around Israel were about more than competing deities. They were likewise about the economic practices and attitudes that informed these cults. The reason the people participated in the fertility cults was in order to gain control over the agricultural and...