Christ is everywhere. God, help us see!
If you have made it this far (or if you have come to this post and have no intention of reading all the rest of that), though, you might enjoy the following game.
This is, in effect, a list of things to watch out for while watching the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, but we’re calling it Bingo, because that’s traditional. And it’s annotated, because hi, have we met?
Read MoreIf you know what the rules are for, you can often work out the details as they arise. At the very least, if you understand the basic principles, the specific applications won’t come as a complete surprise.
Read MoreHave you ever, say, to take a random example, watched a livestream of the plenary sessions of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, and thought: Why are they doing things like this? Who made this stuff up?!? These rules make no sense! How can anyone remember all this?
These are all very reasonable thoughts to have.
Read MoreAh, Junia. Her name appears in the Bible exactly once, in this verse. The name, however, is a perfectly normal name for a woman in that time and place. Lots of women were named “Junia”. So, why is this difficult, exactly?
Read MoreActs 2:15 is hilarious to start with, because what just happened? Oh, right, a bunch of people came pouring out of this house and they were all talking at once, and yet absolutely everyone could understand them perfectly. If that happened, I would not be thinking “these people must be drunk”.
Read MoreInspired by my experience with Kenzie, I set out to explore how other translations approached this challenge.
Spoiler: I was not impressed.
Read More“What do we learn about God from this verse?” we asked the class. It was our standard question.
There was a long pause, which was normal. Maybe the question would go away if no one answered? Alas, it did not. It never did. And so finally, hesitantly, one student held up her hand.
“I think maybe Satan is God’s brother,” Kenzie answered.
Read MoreIn the 21st century, a lot of people are going to assume that if you are talking about “his brother”, you are talking about the male sibling of a male person.
So, in order to translate this one very short phrase acceptably into modern English, it is necessary to compromise.
Read MoreThere is a poem by A. A. Milne which we can reproduce here in its entirety because it was published in 1924 and so now it's in the public domain.
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.