Chris's Musings

  Back in 2020 (Yes, THAT 2020), with all of the negative that came out of that year (and we lived in Colorado and experienced much of it), one seemingly bright light that came into our lives was this crowdsource-funded streaming digital series about the life of Jesus that was starting to gain attention on social media.  It was (and still is) called "The Chosen."   I'm not sure if it was out of curiosity, boredom, or out of the hope that something good would come out of the year we were living in, but we started to watch the first season that streamed on YouTube.  This program, which is the brainchild of Dallas Jenkins (whose dad Jerry Jenkins was the author of the Left Behind series books), was a creative project aimed at expressing the stories of Jesus in the Bible (and we find that much was made up... more on that later) in a modern format mimicking a "bingeable" Netflix series.  The production value was excellent.  The Chosen, especially given the ...

If you've been living under a rock for the last 3 weeks, you may not know this... but there's a lot of people talking about something that's been happening at a very extended chapel service at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky over the past month.   For those living under said rock, essentially a regular chapel service just didn't stop... for like two weeks.  The service started like any other chapel service, with a message from a member of the faculty , and didn't end.  Students just stayed... continued singing, reading scripture, and confession.  At least this is how I understand.  It has been hyped up as the "Asbury Revival" now, by the likes of folks like Louis Giglio (which is how I first heard about it).  Him and many other influential megachurch pastors have been talking a lot about revival and hyping it up.  Nothing wrong with that, IMO.  I won't lie.  I have been leaning in a little to what's going on.  I spent a little t...

Ever wonder what Jesus was taking about in John 2 at the wedding at Cana when He told his mother "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come." (John 2:4)?   To be honest, I hadn't given it much thought until this year, and specifically as I have started my 2023 devotional reading in John.... reading this year not chapter-by-chapter but thought-by-thought (which has taken me a little longer to get through this time).   I always thought, and probably because it's in line with what I've been taught, that Jesus was talking about His time to make His public ministry known, when He's referring to "my hour."  Also, there is a tradition that this act Jesus did in this narrative of turning water into wine was His first miracle... John says in John 2:11 that "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him."  It could have been Jesus' first miracle, ...