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As a result of the Bible Translations presentation at church and the stunning realization that neither our local church nor the church denomination is going to establish where we are going and how we’ll know when we’ve arrived, I’ve been thinking about establishing an Endress Family Creed. First, I respect our leadership’s honesty and openness…

As promised, my update to this post. The church presentation on Bible Versions / Translations was very good…and there’s no argument around the veracity of various translations. There’s also no credible critique of the veracity of the KJV. So, picking apart translations is a zero sum game on its face–let’s say a new believer on…

Three things: You may think this is kind of an odd assortment, like, why these three? Admittedly, two of them came from a mentor of mine, and I thought the vision one is indispensable. I suggest that you identify a place in need of a leader, and then see if you can imagine the outcome…

Recently, a single phrase from 1 Timothy 1 caught my attention. I’ll copy the passage below so you have some context: 1Ti 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; 1Ti 1:2  Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy,…

This past Sunday we read about the births of Esau and Jacob and the subsequent selling of the birthright. I had a light bulb moment – God probably wonders when I’m ever going to figure the most basic things out! Thankfully, He illuminates my thinking little by little. I started thinking about this question right…

Deuteronomy 25:4 teaches us that reward for labor is God’s plan. This passage is quoted twice in the new testament (1 Corinthians 9:9 & 1 Timothy 5:18) with Paul writing specifically both times applying it to anyone who does God’s work. His implication is that muzzling an ox is CRUEL, and so is it to…

My Steiner roots and my mother’s influence on my life are to blame (or be praised 🙂 for this recurring topic. In two past posts, I’ve talked about how words matter. Here and here. Language matters, too. I’m not debating about which language as in English, German, or Mandarin. I’m talking about the power of…

I really enjoy when two seemingly unrelated conversations or concepts marry up for a fascinating revelation. That happened recently. The first was a sunday school lesson for the 7th/8th grades. The topic was the Abramic covenant–especially the test of offering his son, Isaac. We discussed the differences between a covenant (stronger/weaker) and contract (equal parties).…

I am having an epiphany that is causing me to rethink something. I can testify that raising a child is a lot of work. There are also hopes and dreams we have, even if we objectively tell ourselves that there are no guarantees on how my child will affect the world–for good or bad. I…

I’ve been reading Revelation and share some thoughts on lukewarmness in this previous post. When people view my original peak performance model, if they don’t carefully follow the instructions, they end up assuming that middle of the road between the two extremes is the desire state. However, that can lead you very far astray if…