A father takes out a newspaper advertisement for his estranged son — all is forgiven — and eight hundred young men named Paco come to the meeting place. Elliott Stearns takes Hemingway’s story, and the life behind it, into what a father actually supplies.

James 1:19-21: quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to… read more

The same passage a week on — the struggle in… read more

Genesis 25 and the birth of Jacob and Esau, on… read more

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Two are better than one, stated flatly with… read more

Proverbs 17:1 — better a dry crust with peace than… read more

Genesis 16 is a family in ruins: Sarai desperate, Abram weak and then disengaged, Hagar running into the desert. And the one who gives God a name is the mistreated servant girl — El Roi, the God who sees me.

The third message takes up friendship, and Proverbs is strikingly unsentimental about it — the friend who sticks closer than a brother, wounds from a friend against the kisses of an enemy, and the danger of the company a person keeps.

Joab notices the king misses his son and engineers a reconciliation with a coached performance — pretend, act like, put words in her mouth. Pastor Adam builds on triangulation, and on manipulation that arrives with arguably good motives.