Vicki Hinze: Mind Whispers

Random thoughts, articles, blog posts, photos and quotes about relationships, life, books and writing. FMI, visit: www.vickihinze.com Follow this blog

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Did I Hear that Right by Nancy J. Farrier

Photo by River Fx on Unsplash I am always a happy camper when my kids visit. I especially enjoy hanging out with my daughters. We talk non-stop, going from one topic to another, and we share a lot of laughs. I remember one time three of my daughters and I went out shopping and then stopped for tea. While we were in the car, my youngest daughter began telling us about a person she knew who,…

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And Finally by James R. Coggins

Churches are made up of people, people with their own unique gifts, ministries, strengths, weaknesses, and challenges. They have differing relationships with each other. They move around, leaving some friends behind and meeting new ones. The book of Colossians ends with greetings from and about some of the Christians acquainted with Paul, offering brief glimpses of their lives (Colossians…

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Water for Life

In Judaism, a mikveh (or sometimes mikvah) is a ritual bath for purification and cleansing to prepare worshippers or suppliants to enter the temple. The name means “collection of water.” The water must come from a natural source such as a lake, river, lake, ocean, or rain, and must be unmoving, not flowing. The Mishna, the Jewish code of law, defined its requirements. The structure itself had to…

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A Firsthand Account of Unimaginable Brutality and Renewed Hope by James R. Coggins

Someone has said that the death of one person is a tragedy but the death of a million people is a statistic. The point is that when the number of victims gets that large, people cannot comprehend the tragedy, while looking at one victim in detail brings understanding and revulsion at the perpetrators. Some months ago, Ghazaleh Nozamani and Darci Reeves contacted me for help in publishing a book…

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Submission by James R. Coggins

The world of human beings cannot function without organization, and every organization needs to have leadership, someone with authority to make decisions. This whole concept is suspect today. People have had too much experience with unjust, corrupt, authoritarian, and oppressive people in power. But the concept remains valid. In Colossians 3:18-4:1, Paul talked about how authority structures—the…

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Happy Birthday! by James R. Coggins

As an historian, it has not escaped my notice that two nations are celebrating their birthdays in the same week. Canada celebrates on July 1 and the United States on July 4, which is somewhat surprising since Americans generally like to be first. The US was actually born first, in 1776, and is now 250 years old. Canada was born in 1967 and is 159 years old. You would think that at that age,…

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A Model Prayer for Others by James R. Coggins

In writing to the Colossians, Paul indirectly provided to us a model for how to pray for others. The first thing he did was to thank God for the Colossians and their faith: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” (Colossians 1:3 NIV). This is something many of us do not do often enough. In our eagerness to “fix” people (especially our relatives and…

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The dreaded challenge of bikeriding the 39th Street hill

a girl’s mountain biking really fast down hill. Please check out my other images 🙂 Sometimes life is like being 11- or 12-years-old and bikeriding down our town’s dreaded 39th Street hill as a rite of passage. Those brave enough to try stayed on and rode down the steep hill at top speed or joined the ranks of those who crashed and sported broken arms or legs. We all knew we needed to try. It’s…

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My Father’s Faith by James R. Coggins

My father was a man of few words. He had attended and supported churches all his life. He lived a moral life. He was a good husband and father and a kind and gentle man. He said grace before meals. But economic circumstances had limited his formal education, and he was hesitant to articulate his faith. I do remember that once he heard some children in our neighborhood mocking another child for…

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Avoiding What God Hates by Nancy J. Farrier

Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash A few weeks ago, my pastor incorporated Proverbs 6: 16 – 19 in his message.             “There are six things that the Lord hates,  seven that are an abomination to him:              haughty eyes, a lying tongue,  and hands that shed innocent blood,              a heart that devises wicked plans,  feet that make haste to run to evil,              a…

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You Died and Were Raised by James R. Coggins

There is an interesting image in Colossians 3:1-4. Paul said, “Since you have been raised with Christ…” (3:1). This refers to what Paul said previously in Colossians 2:11-12, that our “whole self” was “buried with [Christ] in baptism” and that we “were also raised with him through…faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Jesus was crucified, died, was resurrected, walked again…

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Study the True

Twice during my many years of teaching in Christian university classrooms, a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank employee took different classes from me. She was delightful and we enjoyed insightful conversations. The other students loved asking her questions. Our favorite was the day one asked how Federal Reserve employees are trained to recognizing counterfeit money. My students were sure she and her…

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Study the True

Twice during many years of teaching in Christian university classrooms, a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank employee took two different classes from me. She was delightful and we enjoyed insightful conversations. The other students loved asking her questions. Our favorite was the day one asked how Federal Reserve employees are trained to recognizing counterfeit money. My students were sure she and her…

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Study the True

Twice during many years of teaching in Christian university classrooms and online, a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank employee took two different classes from me. She was delightful and we enjoyed insightful conversations. The other students loved asking her questions. Our favorite was the day one asked how Federal Reserve employees are trained to recognizing counterfeit money. My students were sure she…

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Reflections from a Soup Kitchen by James R. Coggins

Some members of our church go to the local street mission once a month to serve food. One month a while ago, the regulars were not available, and our care group was asked to fill in. It was not the first time I have been involved in a social outreach, but it did lead to some reflections. The people we were serving were homeless, people living on the street. When the doors opened at 6:00 p.m.,…

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Two Stages of Holiness by James R. Coggins

There are two sets of admonitions in Colossians 3:1-15. Together, they offer useful guidance to Christians. Colossians 3:5 commands that a list of sins be eliminated (put to death): “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” These are very obvious sins, and Christians often have no problem condemning them and avoiding them—at least, the physical ones such as…

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