This Epiphany, let your divine "aha!" be the realization that God loves you. And as you grow in the knowledge of that love, spread it around a little — not because it’ll make God love you more, but because the world needs it.
Here's what we do know: Whoever they were, these travelers from the East, they were "overwhelmed with joy" when they saw the star come to rest over the young Christ child (Matt 2:10). Dr. Philip Doddridge observes that the literal translation of the Greek may more accurately be recorded as, "They joyed a great joy, very much." Bad English. Good Theology.
When God created He said “it is good”, not “it is useful”. God did not intend for us to label people for what they can do but to value people for who they are.
Jesus names his present and future vulnerability to pain in this verse and empowers his friends to claim their own limitations, and to use them as the basis for trust. I know how Jesus feels, in terms of having a broken body. I have spastic cerebral palsy: this neurological condition means that my muscles are always tense, or spastic, and that I experience palsy, or continuous tremors in all my limbs.
Are we deliberate in our own lives to welcome someone with a disability to our table? Are we careful to recognize that person by their name, who they are, rather than their disability?
No man, woman or child is an island, and we come to know faith through a community. It is this same community that welcomes us, by faith, through baptism.
When I approached her, she asked me what my dream was; I said, "I want to be a motivational speaker!" She replied, "So why aren’t you?" I proceeded to list off various obstacles including, lack of credentials, lack of an accessible vehicle and lack of an agent. To my surprise she did not offer me solutions. She said, "Great, you know what the problems are; now all you have to do is get a group of people together and find a way to solve them."
Brian Doerkson's latest work revolves around "Level Ground," incorporating the worship band with the congregation and eliminating the traditional barrier between leader and participant.
Over the next weeks, we will be highlighting some of the presentations at the 2013 Summer Institute on Theology and Disability. This week, we are featuring "Agent or Object: A Call to [Read More]
Over the next weeks, we will be highlighting some of the presentations at the 2013 Summer Institute on Theology and Disability. This week, we are featuring "Leviticus and the Priest with Disabilities: [Read More]