freedom

Try Not to Judge This Blog

By Bob Hiller –

Your Bible is bursting at the seams with metaphors aimed at delivering God’s love for you in Christ to your ears and hearts. The language of forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, and liberation are just a few of the big themes that the Holy Spirit has chosen to convey everything God has done for you through the blood of God’s Son. We in the Lutheran camp tend to have a reputation of overemphasizing one particular way of talking about the Gospel: the legal metaphor. The technical language (for you who want to show off at the water cooler on Monday) is forensic justification.

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Why Aren’t you in School? Vocation and the Work of the Hands

By Scott Keith –

This is a short blog written by my son, Joshua Keith. He is an honorable man who believes that the life of the mind is often played out in the work of the hands. I think here he shows himself to be a better-than-average young writer as well.

Before I begin, I’d like to introduce myself. Hello, I’m Joshua Keith. That’s correct, yet another Keith. It’s hard to throw a rock and not hit a Keith on this blog, huh? My father, Scott Keith (Grandpappy Keith), asked me if I would write a blog this week, so I decided to do it on one of the most commonly asked subjects about me.

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The Failure of Men

By Cindy Koch –

My oldest daughters are right in the midst of their teenage years. As it goes with adolescents, we have recently been introduced to a few young men who have captured their attention. As I shake the hands of these boys, a terrible accusation rolls around and around my head but has not yet dared to reach my lips. I know you are a sinner, and you will probably hurt my little girl.

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ET Buried to Be Forgotten

By Jaime Nava –

A couple years ago, archaeologists unearthed something unexpected in New Mexico. There was a legend of items buried within a landfill that had many hoping they were the ones to find it. It was in 2014 that the hunt for an urban legend proved fruitful. What was found? E.T. It wasn’t the actual Reese’s loving alien, but rather a video game that had been released in 1983. Some claim that it was one of the worst games ever made.

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Crunchy Conservatism

By Graham Glover –

It’s been 10 years since the nationally syndicated columnist Rod Dreher penned, ‘Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)”. I was a fan of the book when it was published and am an even bigger proponent of the ideas Dreher is advocating today.

Yes, I am a Crunchy Con. And you, the readers of The Jagged Word, should be as well.

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Recovering the Virtue of Lying

By Bob Hiller –

OK, I will do my best not to bore you with the details of this week’s sports setup. This past week, after losing to Oregon in the NCAA Tournament, Duke’s head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, was caught on camera having a long conversation with opposing player Dillon Brooks. After defeating Duke, Brooks got caught up in the moment and didn’t act very respectfully. During the handshake, Coach K told Brooks he was too good of a player to act that way. When asked about it, Brooks told reporters, “Coach K is a legend. He just told me that I’m too good of a player to be showing off at the end. And you know, he’s right. I gotta respect Duke.” Classy. Well spoken. Good on that young man.

Later, however, when asked about it, Coach K denied saying that at all.

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Remember Why You Started

By Ross Engel –

I fell in love with weight training the first time I walked into the gym. I was a scrawny 14-year-old kid who barely weighed in at 115 pounds. I was so weak that I could barely lift the 45-pound Olympic bar. I had played soccer and basketball for years, so I was pretty quick on my feet. I had just started doing gymnastics, and I wanted to get stronger and faster. My introduction to weight training was a great awakening to a new world, one that I have now spent the better part of 22 years enjoying. That scrawny, wide-eyed kid who stepped through the doors of the gym those years ago is not recognizable when people see me now, but he’s still there in my mind. He (along with a fair share of life’s tormentors) is the unseen motivation behind every set, rep, and training journal entry.

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Welcome to the Rebellion

By Paul Koch –

“If our master, by force or by propaganda about ‘Togetherness’ or by unobtrusively making privacy and unplanned leisure impossible, even succeed in producing a world where all are Companions and none are Friends, they will have removed certain dangers, and will also have taken from us that is almost our strongest safeguard against complete servitude.” – C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves”

Friendship is, at its core, a rebellion. 

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Prodigals, Older Brothers, and Cousins

By Scott Keith –

A few weeks ago, I was honored to be a plenary speaker at the now much lauded Christ Hold Fast (CHF) conference. For many, it was a life changing event. Why? Because the unadulterated Gospel of Christ was handed over with detail and passion for the sinner, over and over again. The speakers were fantastic. They faithfully proclaimed Christ and the forgiveness of sins through God’s radical pursuit of “prodigals” just like us.

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Just Change the Rules

By Bob Hiller –

Have you ever watched poetry? If you’ve seen Stephan Curry of the Golden State Warriors, you have. Curry is making a mockery of the NBA this year. It is really hard for him to miss baskets. No one can cover him. You want to hate someone that good. But then you watch him, and it’s like seeing Bizet’s Habanera from Carmen. It is flawless and beautiful. Play the song and watch his twelve (!) three-pointers from last Saturday’s game in Oklahoma City (including a remarkable OT game winner that looked like child’s play to Curry). Pure basketball righteousness. Curry is killing the rest of the NBA.  Literally no one can stop him.

So, it was fascinating this past week to listen to the fearful reactions around the league. If Curry is so deadly, what do you do with him? Since they can’t stop him, some are talking about changing the rules and adjusting the game to make it harder for Curry (and other shooters like him…of which there are none) to be so dominant.

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Not Ashamed

By Caleb Keith –

After being fried from a nine-hour road trip, I could not find the mental power to write a proper blog this week. Instead, I offer up a short overview of Romans Chapters 1-4. I submitted this essay as an assignment for my New Testament Book of the Bible class. My professor for this course is Dr. Michael Middendorf, who is the author of the new Concordia Publishing House commentary on Romans. Dr. Middendorf’s instruction has been priceless, and I hope this overview is exemplary of that.

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We Don’t Need Sports

By Bob Hiller –

I recently had a great conversation with some old friends about why I like sports. Not being fans, they could only see the negative impact of sports on culture, higher education, and the church. Though I vehemently tried to defend the benefit of sports, much of what they said resonated with me. What is wrong with sports? Or, perhaps a better question is, what is wrong with our attitude towards them?  Is there something wrong with playing and watching sports?

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Piling On

By Bob Hiller –

I know, some of you are tired of me posting about sports and theology on my blog about sports and theology (not to name names Flanagan). But, I have a really good analogy about how the Broncos defense was like the gospel for Peyton Manning. He got on the field and did nothing to help the team win, and yet was given all kinds of accolades for another’s work…anybody? You like it? Fine…I’ll move on…

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Perfect in Weakness

By Jonathan Holmes –

*Jonathan is a pastor of the LC-MS returning from disability and a friend of The Jagged Word.

Anxiety is really starting to piss me off. My anxiety always makes me mad, but I’ve begun to train myself with the question, “What does it matter?” Since the answer is usually, “It doesn’t matter at all, so jog on…” But it’s other people’s anxiety that has begun to piss me off too. Now, I don’t yell at those dealing with it, like “GET OVER IT ALREADY!” No, that is neither Christ like, and usually the anxious person’s anxiety is usually increased, and it does nobody any good. It’s counter-productive. 

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Selfish in Defeat

By Bob Hiller –

Well, friends, I am simply elated. The smile has not left my face in days! All that yelling and pillow biting and making a complete jerk out of myself in front of friends and family has finally paid off! My Denver Broncos are Super Bowl champions! I could not be happier. Watching that defense manhandle every single top level quarterback in the NFL this season (Cam Newton, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers…not so fast Philip Rivers…) has been like listening to a beautiful symphony. Wade Phillips truly produced a work of art. For me, reveling in the Broncos third Super Bowl victory is pure delight.

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The Exodus

By Paul Koch –

The season of Epiphany is drawing to a close. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and with it comes that somber and reflective time of year called Lent. Compared to Lent, Epiphany is an exciting time of the church year. After all, an epiphany is a manifestation of something divine, a moment of sudden insight or revelation. And so Epiphany begins with appearance of a star that leads Magi from the east to worship our Lord. Then we focused on the

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What Are You Looking At?

By Daniel van Voorhis –

Last week I was at a coffee shop doing some work when I found myself staring into space, lost in a thought or lack thereof. After a few minutes (seconds) I noticed I was getting the stink eye from some young twenty somethings at a table in the direction of my blank stare. I will be charitable, but based on the female’s choice of aggressive language on her T-shirt and the plugs in the gentleman’s ears, they weren’t helping to plan a cotillion nor waiting for their chums from the local prep school.

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