Luke 16:19-31

Preachers often bury the lede—especially with this parable.

The rich man’s approach to Lazarus could have been different.

God keeps sending the message that there’s a better way.

The Qur’an is not a description of God. It’s a call to conversion.

At the heart of life is the mess of being stuck with other people.

Conversion narratives raise a question: Why does it take so much to get there?

Greek and English do not work the same way. So what does it mean to create a literal translation?

Luke's story of the rich man and Lazarus is full of vivid details. Which makes you cringe the most?

In Oslo, the freeze-thaw cycle of a warm winter made my bike commute unpleasant. Elsewhere, it's a matter of survival.

The Prodigal Son is often read to mean that God loves sinners, whereas the Jews thought God only loved the righteous. This makes no sense.

"Ephphatha!" Jesus cries in Mark 7. "Open up!" In that passage the command is specifically about hearing and speech. But the image seems emblematic of the gospel in many ways.

Next to the window in my study, where I can’t but see it every day, there’s a framed cartoon from an old edition of the National Lampoon. It’s a spoof of a Medici rose window from the cathedral in Florence, and depicts a laughing camel leaping with ease through the eye of a needle. The superscription reads: “a recurring motif in works commissioned by the wealthier patrons of Renaissance religious art,” while the Latin inscription on the window itself is “Dives Vincet,”or “Wealth Wins!”