Neglect!
The Hāna Highway (aka Road to Hana) is a 68-mile stretch of asphalt in east Maui. It takes about 3 hours to navigate though, with 620 serious curves and 59 bridges (most of them only one lane wide). One side you have lush, verdant rainforest with streams and waterfalls and all. On the other, cliffs and a raging sea with beaches with gold sand, black sand, and red sand! Spectacular!
Somewhere on this road in the middle of nowhere is Coconut Glen’s ice cream stand.
Glen
Rain!
Just. Stop. Raining.
That was the rather odd command issued in a Times of London editorial last week.
Yes, the Brits are getting tired of rain. What with the Olympics and all, this is a wet season promising to douse all the athletic excitement. Londoners, in particular, are getting tired of the miserable weather, which has been plaguing them for months.
Every day—drizzles and downpours, sprinkles and showers. Wet. Flood alerts all over the country. The rain is coming down
Preaching is Doxological
Preaching glorifies God. Preaching abounds to the glory of God. Directly and indirectly, the greatness of God is expressed and exalted through preaching: directly, because of its integral role in the worship of God’s people; and indirectly, God is glorified as his children align themselves to his will (for preaching conforms listeners to divine demand).
While they stood in their place, they read from the book of the law of the LORD their
Rest!
Another busy summer. Can’t you tell?
Appearances, folks, are deceptive. It has been/is a busy summer— about 3 months of weekly preaching, two writing projects, another being polished and finalized, clinical schedules, …. So that respite in the hot tub at our resort in Maui a couple of months ago was very welcome.
Not that I don’t appreciate the busyness of life, especially when I get to do things I thoroughly enjoy. But it was fun to lie around in Maui and do
Snapshot!
They say that we eat first with our eyes. Which is to say, if it looks good, I’m going to enjoy it more.
Scientists, though, have gone further. Apparently food that looks good can make dishes that are bland and not up to par taste better. And—get this!—you can achieve the same effect by just looking at pictures of good food.
In work jointly done by neuroscientists in Lausanne and Tokyo, they declared here:
Preaching is Conformational
Preaching serves to conform the people of God to the will of God. In the account in Nehemiah, the exposition of God’s word leads to covenant renewal, the realignment of the community to the will of their sovereign: getting right with the King.
“You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.