Category: 843 Acres

Posted on

Forces and Powers — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 14 Read: 1 Kings 17 Listen: (3:14)  Read: Psalms 37 Listen: (4:21)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Barbara, TN — Really important charge here! I can certainly see where I believed what may or may not have been right but in the wrong way in times past. Praying for our country and the world. Loved this sentence: “It’s foolish to be unwary of spiritual forces, yet dangerous to be obsessed with them.”

This post was originally published on July 3, 2025, based on readings from Colossians 2.8-15.

Scripture Focus: Colossians 2.8-15

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Reflection: Forces and Powers — Readers’ Choice

By John Tillman

When Paul says there are “forces” and “powers” in this world, what does he mean?

Paul’s language seems ambiguous. Some translations use “basic principles” instead of “elemental spiritual forces”. (Colossians 2.8) Paul’s ambiguity is probably intentional. Ancient thinkers were comfortable with the concept of spiritual powers co-mingling with other powers. Paul recognized layers of visible and invisible powers and forces operating in his world.

Our world also has interconnected forces and powers. Obvious forces include local, state, and federal governments. Cultural forces include social and economic philosophies. We also see the effects of less obvious forces. Corporations create algorithims that influence our media and social media. Dark money floods politics. Insider trading infests banking and business. Wealthy influence peddlers push cultural narratives. And behind the visible and hidden human powers are spiritual powers.

A word of warning: Dangerous and manipulative movements and leaders twist teachings about spiritual things to cause panic and excuse violence and vitriol. The existence of spiritual powers doesn’t mean everyone who votes differently from you or does something you oppose is “demonic.” Beware those discussing “spiritual warfare” in these ways.

How do we navigate a world with multiple layers of spiritual and non-spiritual forces and powers? Look to Paul’s example. Paul stood trial before Roman rulers. Paul opposed ideological forces of Greek philosophy and idolatry at the Areopagus. Paul resisted spiritual forces by tearing down strongholds of spiritual arguments and casting out spiritual beings.

In all cases, Paul defended himself and others against these powers by testifying to the gospel in the name of Jesus. That’s it. No weapons. No mobs. No insurrections. No attacks. No violence. Paul delivered people from demonic influence. He didn’t attack them. Paul just spoke the truth of Jesus.

We must resist many “powers.” Like Paul, we don’t resist the world’s powers with worldly weapons or resist demonic powers by attacking humans. Demonizing and dehumanizing are sinful synonyms from a Christian perspective.

As for the spiritual powers, we don’t fight them—we announce their defeat by Jesus. We don’t disarm the powers—we remind them that Jesus already did.

It’s foolish to be unwary of spiritual forces, yet dangerous to be obsessed with them. Instead, we can walk through the world of powers, confident that Jesus has disarmed them. So long as we walk with him, we cannot be captured by any force or power. Rooted in him, we cannot be moved.

Readers’ Choice is here!

#ReadersChoice is time for you to share favorite Park Forum posts from the year.
What post helped you better understand scripture?

https://forms.gle/aSD7X5psHqjSMtBFA

Read more: Jericho’s Wall

God isn’t interested in destroying people we call our enemies. He’s not on “your side.”

Jericho’s Wall

Posted on

Cosmic and Earthly Creations — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 13  Read: 1 Kings 16 Listen: (5:31)  Read: Psalms 36 Listen: (1:29)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Michelle, NY — This is an excellent devotional on Genesis 1 & 2. Many people struggle with the two chapters and this so-called “mismatches”. I love the way you put context to both to show the harmony between them. God will never mislead us in His word!

This post was originally published on January 2, 2025, based on readings from Genesis 2.7-8.

Scripture Focus: Genesis 2.7-8

7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

Reflection: Cosmic and Earthly Creations — Readers’ Choice

By John Tillman

The creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 sound different.

Genesis 1 is cosmic, ordered, rhythmic poetry. The Spirit hovers. The Word speaks. Photons, matter, and life forms burst into being ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” Day and night separate each act from the next in a chain of images, like framed paintings on a museum gallery’s wall, or colored panes in a stained glass window.

Genesis 2 is earthy, messy, intimate prose. The actions of creation are less ordered and formal. The Creator kneels in a grassless, soggy plain forming a human from the wet earth. He puts his mouth on the muddy shape and breathes into it, then wipes mud from his lips as Adam takes his first breath. God, the gardener, keeps digging in the dirt. He plants and cultivates trees that provide beauty and health, cuts rivers that supply water to distant lands, forms other living creatures out of the ground, and a co-laborer for Adam from his own flesh.

These two versions aren’t arguing with each other. The writers of scripture weren’t confused or ignorant. They didn’t forget what they just wrote. When you lay these two stories over each other, they fill in each other’s gaps.

Whether you need to be reminded of how grand, glorious, and powerful God is or how near, intimate, and tender he is, Genesis has you covered.

Our creator is both cosmic and earthy. He blows galaxies across the universe and he breathes into our lungs. He speaks to photons and whispers in our ears. He scatters stars in the sky and sows seeds in the dirt—and seeds in our hearts.

From its first pages, the Bible reminds us that the glorious God of Heaven muddied his knees and hands at our making. The God who created calculus and physics also created our emotions and feelings. We are also both cosmic and earthy creations. We need his cultivation.

In this new year, how is your garden? Do you need irrigation for dry soil? Do you need to diagnose diseased plants? Do you need to stop pests from nibbling your fruit? Or do you need to plow it all under and start ex nihilo? Let our garden-planting God guide you.

As we walk through the scripture with him, God will never stop cultivating our muddy, messy lives into the garden he always designed us to live in.


Image Note: The image used in today’s post is of the Butterfly Nebulae, located in the constellation of Scorpius.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Readers’ Choice is here!

#ReadersChoice is time for you to share favorite Park Forum posts from the year.

What post did you share with a friend?

https://forms.gle/aSD7X5psHqjSMtBFA

Read more: God In the Dark

God still says “let there be light” and causes the Morningstar to rise in our hearts.

God In the Dark — Hope of Advent

Posted on

God Makes the Disabled Holy — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 10 Read: 1 Kings 13 Listen: (5:14) Read:  Psalms 33 Listen: (2:08)
Oct 11 Read: 1 Kings 14 Listen: (5:22)  Read: Psalms 34 Listen: (2:14)
Oct 12 Read: 1 Kings 15 Listen: (5:30) Read:  Psalms 35 Listen: (3:21)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Barbara, TN — That is a powerful clarification, John! Thank you!

This post was originally published on April 17, 2025, based on readings from Leviticus 21.21-23.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 21.21-23

21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’ ”

Reflection: God Makes the Disabled Holy — Readers’ Choice

By John Tillman

Is God against the disabled?

Leviticus 21.21 seems, at face value, to devalue the disabled.

Is Yahweh breaking his own command from Leviticus 19.14 to not curse or put obstacles in front of the disabled? When Jesus cleared the Temple courts of merchants described as “thieves” and called the disabled to himself, was he “correcting” God’s mistake in Leviticus 21? (Matthew 21.12-14)

No. When we set Jesus against Yahweh (or Yahweh against Yahweh) we deny the essential unity among the godhead which is taught by Jesus, affirmed by the Father, and demonstrated by the Holy Spirit.

There are a few things to consider in this difficult-to-understand passage.

The disabled were not barred from worship or the Lord’s presence. Leviticus 21’s limits are only for priests and only for one specific priestly duty: offering sacrifices.

Disabled priests were barred from physically demanding duties. Serving at the altar involved killing and butchering the animals and carrying out the many physical requirements of the ritual for whatever sacrifice was being made. This physical labor may have been difficult for those with some of the disabilities mentioned.

Nothing, animal, vegetable, mineral, or human, that approached the altar was to have a defect. Sacrifices represented the perfect dying on behalf of the imperfect. Both animal and priest represented the people offering it. Priests “without defect” were mirror images of animals “without defect.” 

Disabled priests had full rights as priests. The disabled priests could not offer the food offerings, but their rights to eat from those offerings were identical to the other priests and they had no other limitations in their responsibilities.

God claimed disabled priests as his and made them holy. Describing a disabled priest’s limitation, God identified himself with them, saying, “his God.” (Leviticus 21.21) God is still their God and they are his priests. They are included when God says, “I am the Lord who makes them holy.” (Leviticus 21.23)

Today, many in our society threaten protections, education, and opportunities for the disabled. Our God makes the disabled holy along with us. Let us not allow anyone to label them as anything but equally blessed and loved by God.
In Christ, the disabled are priests of equal value, equal calling, equal standing, and share an equal blessing of the Holy Spirit. We must include them, not only in feasts, so that all will be blessed (Luke 14.13-14), but in every work of God within their capabilities.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Readers’ Choice is here!

#ReadersChoice is time for you to share favorite Park Forum posts from the year.
What post helped you better understand scripture?

https://forms.gle/aSD7X5psHqjSMtBFA

Read more: Not So Random Acts of Kindness

The disabled community suffered greatly in the ancient world, often expelled as outcasts.

Not So Random Acts of Kindness

Posted on

The Stigma of Disease — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 9  Read: 1 Kings 12 Listen: (5:15)  Read: Psalms 32 Listen: (1:34)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Barbara, TN — So good and true!
Brian, DC — I agree with you. Diseases should ignite our sympathy, not our stigma.  And we should learn to see all of our neighbors through the eyes of God. It is a horrible thing to go through life being taunted and cast out because of something that person had no control over…If only we could see God’s glory in those whom the world refuses to look at let alone talk with and listen to.

This post was originally published on April 9, 2025, based on readings from Leviticus 13:2.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 13:2

2 “When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest.

Reflection: The Stigma of Disease — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

When my son came home from the hospital, he had a glaring, visible physical disability. There would be no hiding this. We were prepared to have a child with disabilities, but after months of medical treatment, we realized his disease would be a billboard.

Stigma comes with diseases and disabilities. People form conclusions and assumptions without information. My love for our son was no less the day he received his tracheostomy, but I knew the stares and whispers would come the moment we stepped out of the building. I imagined them saying, Who sinned, this boy or his parents? (John 9.1-3)

Leviticus 13, unfortunately, has been misunderstood as support for associating disease with moral failure. A series of scale diseases are listed: things that cause discoloration, shiny marks, boils, burns, even baldness. Long ago, these descriptions were misidentified with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease. Combined with stories of scale diseases inflicted on a person for sin, such as Miriam in response to her criticism against Moses (Numbers 12), modern readers began to assume that God judged all those suffering from Hansen’s disease.

Diseases affecting the skin are not the only ones to carry such stigma. Amy Kenny (My Body Is Not a Prayer Request) details how people in the church have approached her with remedies or assessments of her faith just because of her disability.

How do we read Leviticus 13?

The visual aspect of scale diseases resembled skin peeling away. It was a reflection of death; it reminded them of decay. Death has no place in the presence of God. It was not a moral judgment on the person with boils but a recognition that death deteriorates the body. God bestows life and order; death brings decay and disorder.

More than anything, we must read these chapters with eyes heavenward. We are not being given a rulebook on how to judge others based on disease or disability. This chapter points up to God by pointing down toward death.

Diseases should ignite our sympathy, not our stigma.

And what of those that have no “scales” to the naked eye? What reaction will I get when I tell you of my anxiety or my OCD?

Learning to see the world through the eyes of God means being quick with sympathy and slow with accusations. It means knowing the real enemy is the disorder brought on by death and not pinpointing supposed faults.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Readers’ Choice is here!

#ReadersChoice is time for you to share favorite Park Forum posts from the year.

What post challenged or convicted you?

https://forms.gle/aSD7X5psHqjSMtBFA

Read more: Spiritual Twins

Each twin is a perfect donor match to the other. They can heal one another if needed. A better “eye for an eye.”

Spiritual Twins — Readers’ Choice

Posted on

Her Voice from the Margins — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 8  Read: 1 Kings 11 Listen: (7:05)  Read: Psalms 31 Listen: (3:11)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — I have learned so much from the dear saints who, when we first met, were alcoholics, homeless, crack addicts, prostitutes, and felons. These friends are the most honest, aware, and wise women and men I know. God IS the one who hears the voices of those on the margins.”
Barbara, TN — Thank you, Erin! Such a good take!
Jon, TX — Preach!

This post was originally published on January 15, 2025, based on readings from Genesis 16:6-7, 13.

Scripture Focus: Genesis 16:6-7, 13

6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.
13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

Reflection: Her Voice from the Margins — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

“As a symbol of the oppressed, Hagar becomes many things to many people” (Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror).

We are accustomed to comparing the two sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael. Even in the ordering of the names, we place the younger, chosen son before the eldest. There is an instinctual (or likely a learned) way of viewing Isaac positively and Ishmael negatively. Perhaps the mind wants to conclude: If Ishmael is not chosen by God, he is rejected by me.

Similar thoughts are carried on to their mothers: Sarah and Hagar. Sarah at the beginning is the sole wife to Abraham. It is the promise given to her that the grand ancestry of God’s people would be rooted. But she laughed, she doubted, she schemed.

There are many stories in the Bible that can, if we are still listening, furrow our brows in concern. At first we are reading with a smile watching God choose and bless this family, but then the frailty of humanity sneaks in and begins to warp the goodness. If we are too calloused to see it anymore, we might be tempted to shrug off this really bad idea as something that “works out in the end.”

Works out? For whom?

We have a rare glimpse into the aftermath of Sarah and Abraham’s scheme. We watch Hagar flee into the wilderness for solace. It is there that God comes to meet her. And for the first time, a character in the story calls her by name.

This is why Hagar means so much to so many—God knew her even when people abused her.

Phyllis Trible noted how Hagar represents the marginalized in our day: “She is the faithful maid exploited, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeing from affliction, the pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the welfare mother, the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in service to others” (Texts of Terror).

Hagar reminds us of the importance of letting the marginalized speak. It is Hagar who names God, the One Who Sees. There is no monopoly of knowing God. Let us listen.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Readers’ Choice is here!

#ReadersChoice is time for you to share favorite Park Forum posts from the year.

What post helped you endure suffering?

https://forms.gle/aSD7X5psHqjSMtBFA

Read more: Prayer for Outcasts

We pray, today, for those who flee. Aid their flight.
May they avoid danger, escaping the fowler’s snare.
May they find fair winds, lifting their wings and spirits.

Prayer for Outcasts — Guided Prayer