“Use this worship service, I pray, I beseech You
To unmask all falsehood by Your Word of authority,
Authority that bleeds from the side of the gospel.
I pray that the word of Your gospel would reign.”
21 Prayers, p. 14
Work in Us Now
“I pray that the text this morning would be
Immediate, forceful, and present to all.
Work in us now Your mysterious grace.”
21 Prayers, p. 11
Cuts Both Ways
“If you meet a Jew who will not admit that the Jews of the first century were filled with a hot, persecuting zeal, and were the worst of the worst, then you are talking with someone who is refusing spiritual wisdom. And if you meet a Christian who is unwilling to admit that the pogram at York in AD 1190 was a Godforsaken hot mess, then you are talking with someone who is also failing at life.”
American Milk and Honey, p. 83)
Pulling Them Over
“As we gather our ropes and our spiritual tackle,
Considering all of the idols before us—
Mars, Aphrodite, and Mammon, and Gaia,
Bacchus, and Vulcan, and all of the others—
I pray You would take up our worship this morning,
And make it surpass the worship of gods—
Tumble them, topple them, make them fall over,
And all in the presence of all of their worshipers,
So that they might know that You are the true God.”
21 Prayers, pp. 5-6
Jew and Judean
“If Ioudaios is translated as ‘Jew,’ this means a Jew is being contrasted with the Gentiles. If it is translated as ‘Judean,’ the primary contrast is with the Galileans—although it could also be in contrast with other groups as well: Samaritans, say. The parallel is not exact, but we do something similar with the word ‘Yank’ or ‘Yankee.’ It can mean New Englander as opposed to other Americans, or it can mean Americans over against the rest of the world.
American Milk and Honey, pp. 69-70
The Terms of Your Covenant
“With trembling fear and a boldness that matches,
I dare hold Your name to all terms of Your covenant
And ask You to rise and to bare Your right arm.
But Father, I ask it would turn out to be
Your left arm instead, surprising us all.”
21 Prayers, p. 4
A Wide Range
“Some Jewish groups would be as far away from Christianity as the Sufi Muslims would be, and are kind of out there, while others have inched back toward the Christian center, and are just Unitarians with yarmulkes.”
American Milk and Honey, p. 66
What Dragnets Do
“I ask that the dragnet of Your holy kingdom
Would sweep through our towns, hauling everything in—
Good fish and bad fish, beer bottles and weeds.”
21 Prayers, p. 3
The Church as Israel Reborn
“After the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, all they had left were their erroneous traditions. This is why modern Judaism is best considered a heresy of the Old Testament faith, and not a representation of it. To be a Christian is to maintain that the fulfillment of the Old Testament is in the Christ of the New Testament, and not in rabbinic Judaism.”
American Milk and Honey, pp. 64-65
A Gibbeted Christ
“He was killed, though the coming and faith one,
He died on a stake, a gibbeted Christ.
Distorted and bent on a twisted cross,
And by left-handed dealings, by subtle turns,
He turned all pious and correct expectations
Up on their heads; He tumbled them down.”
21 Prayers, pp. 1-2