By striving to prove how much they deserve God's love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don't deserve it. The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.

What would a church look like that created space for quietness, that bucked the celebrity trend and unplugged from noisy media, that actively resisted our consumer culture? What would worship look like if we directed it more toward God than toward our own amusement?

True healing, of deep connective tissue, takes place in community. Where is God when it hurts? Where God's people are.

Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy.

The Cross of Christ may have overcome evil, but it did not overcome unfairness. For that, Easter is required.

Be salt, and a little bit of salt keeps the whole society from going rancid.

The surgery of life hurts. It helps me, though, to know that the surgeon himself, the Wounded Surgeon, has felt every stab of pain and every sorrow.