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Devotional
February 27 2024 By dvirtue DOSTOEVSKY AND DIALOGUE

Faith leads to righteousness Paul said. Without its prefix "self," we don't use the term righteousness any more. There is something smug about the word: lots of add-ons to the old English word "rihte" for "correct" actions or "direct" paths (both correct and direct deriving from the Latin "rectus" for straight). But to Paul, righteousness was the product of faith: because we believe, we act in a way that is "correct" without deviating from the path.

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February 12 2024 By dvirtue Transfiguration--and Transformation

Some traditions have just celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration when atop a mountain outside of Jerusalem Jesus' clothes "became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them" (Mark 9: 3 NIV). The ancients didn't have chlorine bleach (the process wasn't discovered until the time of the American Revolution), and any whitening of fabric or filaments was done by "fuller's soap," a mixture of soda ash, olive oil and alkaline salt (see Micah 3:2). It took months.

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January 15 2024 By dvirtue THE LONGING GOD

When history has run its course, it will be judged with justice by its Creator who sees the reality of our human ambitions, achievements and failures. In every age, there is the same scramble to possess the things of this world and its kingdoms, rather than to serve God and his kingdom.

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January 15 2024 By dvirtue What Good Can Come

I thought of that long-ago association on hearing Sunday's gospel. "What good can come out of Nazareth?" asked the skeptical Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree when Philip approached him to meet the one "about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." In the northern district of Galilee, Nazareth was known for insurrection, poverty and not very good wine.

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December 18 2023 By dvirtue The Marriage of New Life

One thing not mentioned in any of these marriage-metaphor scriptures, but perhaps overarching all is the new life created in a marriage and by God's commitment to His people and His church. Of course, new life can be created without marriage and appears each spring by celestial ordinance. But it's not the same.

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November 27 2023 By dvirtue SEALED AS CHRIST'S OWN

The water of baptism of course dries off (if it isn't blotted), and the oil of chrism doesn't survive the next bath or shower. How then to tell whether a person has been baptized; has renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil; and has promised to follow Christ as his Savior and Lord? No external markings, no contemporaneous professions, perhaps no sealed document to attest to the new Christian's faith.

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November 26 2023 By dvirtue INTO THE UNKNOWN

Wrong. Maybe I was in it for myself. But God has a peculiar way of making His will be known. He dashes your dreams. Professional recognition? Maybe. Marital bliss? Hardly. Christian commitment? Not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

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October 26 2023 By dvirtue Charity Begins at Home

The tenant is a legal immigrant, single mother of two young children, including an infant brought to the apartment from the hospital where he was born. The absentee father has his own problems and can no longer provide support or maintenance. It is getting colder and I have a real estate tax bill due

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July 25 2023 By dvirtue WEEDS AMID THE WHEAT

The last two Gospel lessons read this summer present Matthew's account of Jesus' parables of the sower, the seed, and the weeds (13: 1-43). Luke (8:4-15) and Mark (4:3-8) also have their own accounts, but only Matthew adds the parable of the weeds growing amid the "good seed." The three synoptics tell of the seed strewn on four different surfaces. Jesus uses seed as metaphor for the Word of God and explains how the different surfaces produced different yields.

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June 19 2023 By dvirtue SOLA GRATIA!

The minister pastoring this Lutheran congregation is actually the retired bishop of New York. You will search the street maps of New York in vain for a Lutheran cathedral, which may be just as well since it is one less building to have to put into mothballs waiting for a buyer to convert it into condos or a recreation center or some other use that profanes Christ's sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

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