News

There are times when the state of things in this world can seem pretty bleak—when things at a national, international, and even local and person level seem pretty bad. Too often it seems like evil and selfishness are winning, despite genuinely good people doing all that they can to try to do what’s right. This Sunday we will reflect on a vision from the book of Revelation that captures this feeling—the vision of souls under the altar crying out to the Lord, “How long, O Lord?”—and we will see what the Lord has to tell us about what to do when it seems like things are really bad and will never get better.

Have you ever found yourself in a bad place and wondered how on earth you got into this mess? Things were once so great! Life was sailing along smoothly and you were proud of how much growth you’d seen in yourself. Yet here you are, back to your crabby, unhappy, selfish self. What went wrong? This pattern is common not just in individuals but in communities and even across history. Luckily, it does not happen by chance. This Sunday we’ll look what Revelation can tell us about this cycle and how we can avoid it.

How do you love someone who is committing evil? What about when that person is your best friend? Is it our place to correct him? Do we distance ourselves from him? Jesus, through His teaching and His example, calls us to remain close with those who do evil (which is frankly all of us), and also to have the courage to stand up for them by opposing what they are doing.

In this series so far we have looked at what the early years of the life of Joshua can show us about the early years of Jesus’ life and we have looked at what the turning point in Joshua’s life when he took over command of the Children of Israel can show us about a similiar turning point in Jesus’ life. This Sunday, in the final part of the series, we will look at what Joshua’s conquest of the land of Canaan can show us about what Jesus was fighting against and fighting for during His three years of active ministry.

Joshua was the military commander of the people of Israel, who led them across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, where he violently claimed the land in the name of Jehovah his God. Jesus was a spiritual leader, who came to the Jordan River to be baptized and begin His ministry of love and repentance. Yet these two stories, so different on the surface, are the same story. This Sunday we will explore what Joshua crossing the Jordan can tell us about Jesus and His ministry.

People have been drawing parallels between the stories of Joshua and Jesus for a long time (which makes sense considering that Jesus is the Greek version of name Joshua). But the teachings of the New Church indicate that the connections between the stories go much deeper than a shared name and some intriguing similarities. Every detail of the story can be read as a way for us to get a deeper understanding of the Lord’s experience while He was on earth. This Sunday we will explore the early stories of Joshua, before he became the leader of the Children of Israel, and what those stories can show us about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How do physical things relate to spiritual things? What is the connection between our body and our spirit? How do we make sense of the confusing physical imagery in the Bible, a book that is supposed to be about spiritual things? New Church teachings explain these things using a fascinating concept called correspondence. This Sunday we will explore this concept and how it can change how we look at everything in the Bible and the world around us.

Fear and anxiety are inevitable in life. Nor is that a bad thing. Fear of failure motivates us to succeed, anxiety brings our attention to problems that we need to overcome. But when we are crippled by these things, and our choices are limited by our fears, we cannot grow the way we would want. The Lord tells us what we can do then: seek first the kingdom of God. If we manage to get our priorities right, then our anxieties, although still present, will be longer control us.

Dreams play an important role in many stories of the Word. Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and others had dreams sent by the Lord that revealed the His will to them. Today we rarely put much importance on dreams. And yet they remain a universal experience. Is there a way that dreams still connect us to the Lord and the spiritual world? This Sunday we will explore what dreams can mean for us today and how they can reflect a spiritual influence on our lives.

In the Gospel of John, after the Lord rises from the dead, He interacts with Peter a few more times and gives him some important final directions. This Sunday we will reflect on what this story can show us about the failure, frustration, and transformation that we’re likely to go through as we try to follow the Lord.