Archive of entries posted by Ray
Best Reads of 2025
Each year I keep a list of the books I read all the way through, typically with brief notes, as a way of tracking my thoughts and a way to look back on each year and see some of what influenced me. So, in this post I have drawn from that list some of the …
Rhymes & Times
I am pleased to get to announce the publication of my mom’s book today, her first birthday since going to be with the Lord. My mom loved words and writing. I knew she published a few of her reflections and poems in local papers and discovered she had published a few in a local journal. …
Work Hard!
The Imaginative Conservative recently published my essay with this title. This is an address I gave to a group of Union students at a guys morning Bible study a couple of years ago. Too many voices encourage men to laziness or a complaining, whining spirit. We must cast this off and embrace the call to …
Best Reads of 2024
Each year I keep a list of the books I read all the way through, typically with brief notes, as a way of tracking my thoughts and a way to look back on each year and see some of what influenced me. So, in this post I have drawn from that list some of the …
John Brown of Haddington on Frequent Communion
Kudos to Gregory Soderberg for this new edition of this important essay by John Brown of Haddington! I have for years said this piece deserved republication for a new audience. You can see an earlier blog post here. At the time of that post, WorldCat only showed 3 copies of the booklet in the US. …
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Christmas: God at Work in the Dark
Pastoring in Hiroshima
One of the great things about reading history is that you stumble upon powerful examples. I am currently reading David Roll’s Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World. After describing the events leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima and the devastating effects of the atomic bomb, Roll related …
Recognizing and Responding to the Messiah
This Spring Union University Press released its latest book, Recognizing and Responding to the Messiah: Sermons on the Gospel of Mark, edited by Justin Wainscott and myself. For quite a few years, chapel services at Union have included a series through a book of the Bible. We call this our WORD series. This book contains …
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“Thank You for Tomorrow”
The Jackson Post, our local newspaper, published my article by this title, where I reflected on listening to one of my young sons pray. The article is a revision of a post here from 12 years ago. I appreciate the paper being willing to publish this. It is great to have a local paper, and …