Author: David Ellis

Don: Emptiness is the third and penultimate stage in M. Scott Peck’s taxonomy of community. It is characterized in part by silence and listening. The early Christians felt this after going through the chaos of stage 2, when Gentiles began to be admitted to what had hitherto been a purely Jewish congregation: All the people…

Don: People of all faith communities are united in seeking God, so why do our notions of God divide us? Why are we so polarized? We are divided in big and small ways, by age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economically, politically, and in our perspectives on  such issues as abortion, gun control and education. According…

Don: The need to penetrate the secrets of God seems almost “hard-wired” into the very fiber of our being. It is related to our individual stage of faith.* It could also be argued that it is the root of sin. The temptation in the Garden of Eden was not about a simple choice between Good…

Don: We see in the story of Job the overwhelming desire of Man to penetrate the knowledge of God. In the dialog between Job and his friends two things stand out: One is Job’s particularly insistent questions about God engendered by the circumstances of Job’s life. We want to know and think we need to…

Don: Job was beset by Satan, the epitome of evil. The Book of Job can be divided into three parts: Part one, consisting of Job 1 and 2, can be described as a prologue. It introduces the dramatis personae and outlines Job’s trials and tribulations. His trials are essentially a metaphor for the existential condition…

Don: Usually we think of evil as something that affects us adversely and personally—something that makes us suffer, causes us sorrow or pain, deprives us of wellbeing, disadvantages us, disrupts our happiness or contentment, afflicts us with loss. In short, we think of evil as anything that prevents us from living a joyous life. It…

Don: In some ways, the death and the resurrection of Jesus embody the concepts of good and evil. Following the parable we have been studying, Jesus made the observation recorded in this passage: As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He…

Don: From the parable of the vineyard workers we have been trying to develop an understanding of the importance of works in the life of a believer. The two major themes of the parable are first that work is important, that there is something to do for everyone, and that all are employable in the…

Don: In describing the day of judgment, why did Jesus call those judged unworthy to enter the kingdom of heaven “you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7)? By nature, all of us are sinners: …as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;”…. …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of…