For most of this series on Empire and Spirit, we've seen how the stories of our Scriptures and the teachings of Jesus and Paul challenged Rome's power and authority. But as I noted last week, this isn't the whole story. In that post, I looked at Jesus' famous teaching, to "Render unto Caesar what is … Continue reading A Tyrant’s Dream? (Disarming Romans 13.1-7)
I was chatting with a friend recently about dating, and specifically about why dating these days is so difficult. He brought up the point that our particular cultural moment's great diversity in approaches, attitudes, and goals people have in relationships makes it difficult to know where we stand at any given time. While theoretically everyone … Continue reading The Rule of Saint Paul, or, What’s Love Got to Do with It
So far this series on Empire and Spirit has looked at how the Gospel teachings of Jesus and Paul challenged the thought world of the Roman Empire. We've seen how disciples of Jesus are to reject the might-is-right Roman models of authority, but are instead to lead through humility; Christians likewise shake up the normal … Continue reading Render unto Caesar
'Who am I?' It's one of the most fundamental questions of the human experience. As children we learn to differentiate ourselves from our parents, families, and friend groups. Through trial and error, we figure out what we're good at (and where we struggle), what we value, what we believe, and who and how we want … Continue reading A Question of Identity: A Reflection on Matthew 16.13-20 and Romans 12.1-8
Yesterday, I wrote about some of the complications involved in telling the stories of our lives. I focused particularly on the problems with endings — how ending them too soon can cause us to misunderstand our stories, and how not ending them at all can leave us stuck in the past or paralyzed like a … Continue reading The Messy Middle (Part II of The Stories of our Lives)
Matthew Root 