The God of Seeing
May God make the church a place where people are seen and cared for, and where we don’t turn away even when it’s uncomfortable.
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May God make the church a place where people are seen and cared for, and where we don’t turn away even when it’s uncomfortable.
More than a year ago, we moved into a house in Toronto’s midtown. Most days, in most seasons of the year, the back of our house, which faces south, is flooded with light. After we moved, I bought some house plants, including a banana leaf plant which I put in this south-facing room. To be clear, I’m not much of a green thumb. I will water (when I don’t forget). But chances are good that I’m going to ignore instructions like, “Fertilize in peak-growing season,” or “Occasionally wipe dust from leaves with a damp cloth.” That sounds like way too...
Over the years D.A. Carson has been incredibly kind to TGC Canada in general and to me in particular. As most readers will know, Don was born in Montreal and spent his entire childhood in the Province of Quebec. He went to seminary in Toronto, Ontario, and pastored churches in multiple Canadian Provinces before finally taking up residence as a scholar in Cambridge, England, and later in Chicago, Illinois. As such, though it has been more than 30 years since Don Carson called Canada home, he continues to make an effort to encourage and support Canadian pastors. Back in 2015...
Scripture tells us to imitate Christ—or to imitate those who imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1). But it goes deeper than that. Jesus’s life stands as the exemplar for our moral behaviour (1 Peter 2:21–25). Even the word godly can mean, for example, to be holy as God is holy (1 Pet 1:16). In other words, following Christ’s footsteps and living according to God’s standard amount to a similar thing. But here all of us intuit a basic problem. God calls us to be holy as he is holy—godly, but we are not God nor can we be. He is infinite;...
My Dad is in ICU, my Mum is stranded in Washington DC, my wife and daughter are isolated with COVID, and I am hanging out in my basement doing my best to avoid the seemingly inevitable viral invasion. Ever since I was born pre-mature, I have battled sickness. I am often the weak one, the patient, the cause of my family’s worry and concern. Over the years, I have learned that I am neither a good patient nor a helpful caregiver. My coping mechanism is to just ignore the problem and soldier on. The stiff upper lip and all that....
