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God's grace in Ephesians 2

Lynne Baab • Thursday October 29 2020

I had an interesting conversation with a friend about two months into the pandemic. She was working very hard at her job (from home), and she was eating really well and getting in her 10,000 steps every day. She said that deep inside, a voice was telling her that if she did everything well enough, God would release her from the demands of sheltering in place.

I wonder if any of you have felt somewhat like my friend – now in the pandemic or at other times of your life. “If I just do things right, then God will approve of me...

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Psalm 96: A call to prayer for the nations

Lynne Baab • Wednesday October 21 2020

Back in the 1990s, I used to teach for a program called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. I was assigned one of the 15 lessons, and I travelled to different churches around the Northwest to teach my lesson. When I would tell friends the title of my lesson – “the biblical basis of mission in the Old Testament” – they would often say, “What? There’s mission in the Old Testament?”

To help my students get beyond that perspective, I would begin the class session by reading them Psalm 96, asking them to count the references to the whole world. They came...

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Matthew 27: The question of Judas

Lynne Baab • Wednesday October 14 2020

Will Judas be in heaven? That question stimulated some creative and challenging thinking on the part of theologian Ray Anderson, my favorite Fuller Seminary professor.

Take a look at this not-very-cheerful incident from Matthew 27:1-5:

“When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor. When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, ‘I have sinned by...

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Matthew 22: Whose image do you bear?

Lynne Baab • Wednesday October 7 2020

The Pharisees often tried to trip up Jesus, “entrap him in what he said,” according to Matthew 22:15. In an incident late in Jesus’ ministry, the Pharisees send some of their own disciples to him. These disciples butter up Jesus with some florid compliments, then ask him whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. This was a divisive issue at the time in occupied Israel.

It was impossible to give an answer to that question that wouldn’t anger someone, and Jesus knows that. He asks them to show him the coins that were used to pay the...

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