Dave Shive: Part I, Blessing

Dave Shive: Part I, Blessing

At the spring 2023 NextGen Gathering, we will wrestle with a familiar term: “blessing.” This word is so common that it shouldn’t require much commentary. And yet, as is often the case, we may only have a vague idea of the precise meaning of terms employed in daily...
Angela Zimmerman: A Promise With A Purpose

Angela Zimmerman: A Promise With A Purpose

In our last post, we hit an amazing crescendo, an intensity of God’s covenant to Abram and generations of faithful followers that involved a faith and a promise. In our final post in this series, we’re going to take a look at the implications of God’s promise, and how...
Angela Zimmerman: A Gospel Revealed

Angela Zimmerman: A Gospel Revealed

In our last post we took a moment to consider the moment when unbelief (e.g. belief in the ANE gods) becomes belief in the One True God. It’s not yet fully formed in Abram’s heart, but it’s something worth stepping into, and that’s everything to God. We see from...
Angela Zimmerman: A Change Of Allegiance

Angela Zimmerman: A Change Of Allegiance

In our last two stories, we get a glimpse of God’s command to Abram to leave his country and his father’s household and go to a country God will show him. We also teased out God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12:2, which is a stark anthesis to man’s desire to make...
Angela Zimmerman: God Didn’t Bless the Brick

Angela Zimmerman: God Didn’t Bless the Brick

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2 ESV)   Read and ponder Genesis 12:2 for a moment. It should be a passage that stops us in our usually-always cursory habits of...
Angela Zimmerman: Abrams Re-call

Angela Zimmerman: Abrams Re-call

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1 ESV)  We saw in our last post how God continually reached out to mankind to communicate and establish a relationship. Man...