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28 illustrations — Illustrations from diverse theological traditions
In the writings of Teresa of Avila, the soul journeys through interior rooms toward union with God. But what she describes in the sixth mansion...
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Romans.
When Rachel Held Evans wrote about her journey back to faith, she described confession not as a transaction — say the right words, punch your...
When the assayer tests gold for purity, he does not guess at its composition. He subjects the metal to precise, measurable heat — 1,064 degrees...
In 1881, scholar B.B. Warfield stood before his Princeton seminary students and made a declaration that would echo through generations: the words of Scripture are...
When Rachel Held Evans wrote about faith after deconstruction, she described it not as a house rebuilt exactly as before, but as something new growing...
In 2018, Rachel Held Evans wrote about sitting with a friend who had just been told by her church that her questions made her dangerous....
In her masterwork *The Interior Castle*, Teresa of Avila describes a season when prayer itself seems to dissolve. The words stop coming. The feelings of...
In the practice of centering prayer, there comes a moment when every thought has been released and every word has fallen away. You sit in...
In deep winter, a river does not cease flowing simply because ice has sealed its surface. Beneath the frozen crust, water moves — dark, unseen,...
There is a moment in centering prayer when the mind finally stops reaching. The sacred word dissolves. The breath slows. And in that vast interior...
When the community garden in downtown Portland was bulldozed to make way for another luxury apartment complex, something unexpected happened. The displaced gardeners — refugees,...
In the practice of centering prayer, there comes a moment Thomas Merton called "the point of nothingness" — when the sacred word dissolves, when thoughts...
When Rachel Held Evans wrote about faith unraveling, she described something many of us know intimately — the experience of watching certainties come apart at...
In the tradition of *lectio divina*, we do not merely read Scripture — we allow Scripture to read us. A monk once described his decades-long...
A friend of mine volunteers at a community kitchen in downtown Portland where the only rule posted on the wall reads: "Everyone eats." Not "everyone...
When a surgeon operates, every cut serves a purpose. No incision is random, no wound without design. The patient, lying on the table, cannot see...
There is a moment in centering prayer when every distraction has been released, every thought gently set aside, and what remains is not peace but...
Teresa of Avila described the soul as a castle with many mansions, and at the very center, in the innermost room, Christ waits. Most of...
In the sixteenth century, John of the Cross sat in a tiny prison cell in Toledo, barely six feet by ten, where his own Carmelite...
Rachel Held Evans once wrote that the Bible is not a book about people who got it right — it is a book about God...
When Rachel Held Evans wrote about her journey back to faith, she described finding Jesus not at the end of a theological exam but at...
In 1923, a family in rural Kentucky discovered a deed to forty acres of prime timberland tucked inside the family Bible. The deed was legitimate,...
In 1989, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco during the World Series. Buildings pancaked, highways collapsed, and the ground itself became unreliable. Yet engineers later...
In the writings of John of the Cross, there comes a season he calls the dark night — when every familiar consolation withdraws, when prayer...