• Fred's Blog

    An Abiding Interest

      If David Brooks and Frederick Buechner do not know each other, I wish they did because they have at least a couple of things in common. Buechner once told an interviewer that he is “too religious for secular readers and too secular for religious ones.” Both Brooks and Buechner share an abiding interest in the world around them. David describes it as “paying attention” as he walks around New York, travels and teaches at Yale. His ability to find both the obscure and the familiar and hold them up in fresh ways is what keeps people coming back to his columns and books. Frederick Buechner writes about “listening to…

  • Bible Studies

    Stealing

    1.  You have probably heard this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. There are some things that we hold as self-evident which means you need no proof for them. They are accepted by all people at all times as true. All we need to do is affirm them – but not prove them. In the same way, you would expect a number of the commandments – like do not steal – to be self-evident. After all, don’t we just know that…

  • Fred's Blog

    Till the Cows Come Home

      I have had the privilege of learning from many wise older men throughout my life, one of them being Peter Drucker. Peter and I worked together through my role with Bob Buford and Leadership Network. For the first 12 years I was around Peter, I spoke only when he asked a question. Otherwise, I listened and took notes. In 1996, Peter and I spent a day together talking about the future of The Gathering. He was especially interested in our focus and what we hoped to accomplish. And if you know anything about Peter, you know that all discussions lead back to results. Peter and I met again to…

  • Bible Studies

    Adultery

    1.  Now we come to the seventh commandment: you will not commit adultery. In a sense adultery is a combination of all the sins that follow. It is theft in that it involves the taking of something is not ours. It is covetousness in that it is desiring something belonging to someone else and it always involves a lie. That is why it comes after murder – it is a type of murder. The murder of fidelity and a sacred relationship. There are a number of words for sexual sin in Scripture and let’s look at those individually. First, there is porneia or what we call fornication. Several times Paul…

  • Bible Studies

    Murder

    1.  Last week we looked at the fifth commandment – honor your mother and father – and pointed out that the first four commandments are about who God is and our relationship with him. The fifth commandment is then about the next most important relationship in our lives – that with our parents. That relationship is the root of all our other relationships in life. The sixth commandment begins a series of commandments about our relationship with others – but in a way it begins with the first family and the almost immediate effect of sin – the murder of Abel by Cain. No sooner had they lost paradise than…

  • Fred's Blog

    To Give Yourself Away

      Most of us are first made to read Shakespeare before we have enough life experience to even partially understand it. It wasn’t until I was teaching King Lear in senior English at Stony Brook – and had a daughter of my own – before I realized that King Lear was so much about his relationship with his daughters and his desperate attempt to pass off responsibility without giving up privilege. It was the tragic tale of a father demanding love and honor – things that could only be earned. Years went by and I didn’t reread King Lear until much later when I was co-teaching “The Wise Art of…

  • Bible Studies

    Honor Your Father and Mother

    1.  We’ve come to the fifth commandment this morning. First, God gives the four commandments that focus on the nature of God and our relationship with him. Now the fifth commandment that comes directly after that. What is the nature of our relationship with our family? It’s almost as important as our relationship with God. After the fifth commandment will be the description of our behavior within a broader community or tribe but this relationship – family – is central to our lives and the life of our community. That is why it follows immediately after the first set of commandments. There can be no society without strong families and…

  • Fred's Blog

    David Brooks: A Holy Friend

    Dr. John Stott’s last bit of advice to his assistant before he died was simply this, “Do the hard thing.” “Uncle John” believed that choosing the easy trail, the road most taken, and the path of least resistance can only end in mediocrity – even if it comes with praise. I experienced firsthand John Stott doing the hard thing. He arrived late at night from London to talk with a group of pastors the next day. I met with John to let him know we designed the meeting to allow him the freedom of no preparation; he had only to reflect on what he had already written. When I told…

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