BEING HUMAN

Contemplating the Divine and Earthly through Human Eyes • Споглядання Божественного і земного очима людини

  • Love Your Enemies? – Part 1

    10–15 minutes
    2,440 words

    #BeingHuman. “Love Your Enemies”? No verse of Scripture is quoted to Ukrainian Christians more often, by well-meaning believers abroad and by the russian-speaking “Slavic” communities, than the command of Jesus in Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It arrives in our inboxes and messaging apps, in Facebook comments and in conversations, as though it were self-evidently an argument for laying down the arms with…

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  • Sunday Sermon on Luke 16:19-31

    18–27 minutes
    4,206 words

    [My sermon today at the “Skelya” (Rock) Church, Rivne; if you are interested in what we preach about during the ongoing full-scale russian war against Ukraine… People sometimes ask what is left to preach when the sirens and explosions do not stop. We do not preach a softer Gospel here, nor a louder one. We open the same Scriptures we always have, and we find that the russian war has…

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  • A New Lesson, a Little Inconvenient, On Christian Leadership and the Shape of Partnership in Wartime…

    9–14 minutes
    2,160 words

    #BeingHuman. A New Lesson, a Little Inconvenient, On Christian Leadership and the Shape of Partnership in Wartime… When we speak about seminaries, local churches, and church unions in Ukraine today, we reach almost by reflex for the language of structural change. It is a large part of what we do through the Vital Sustainability Initiative, and the word at the heart of that name, sustainability, is the quiet pressure behind…

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  • On the Great Benefits Of Ukrainian Christians Being Silent…

    4–6 minutes
    946 words

    If only Ukrainians were silent, what a joy the ministry of reconciliation would be. The Russian seminary professor could lecture on it in a Ukrainian theological seminary, untroubled by a victim in the room, and publish his paper on forgiveness in “Theological Reflections.” Because no one would interrupt, he would never once be asked by a Ukrainian student the single question the whole subject turns on: who, exactly, is to…

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