The Prophets and Our Age of Political–Religious War

February 1, 2026.Reading time 9 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

The prophets are not museum pieces. They are not ancient scolds yelling at vanished empires. They are a diagnostic tradition—a long, demanding conversation in which God refuses to let belief, power, or suffering drift away from moral meaning. When societies fracture into political and religious camps convinced that the other side is the real problem, the prophetic voice does not retreat. Historically, it intensifies.

That is why the prophets feel uncomfortably contemporary.

Across Scripture, prophets arise not when faith disappears, but when faith becomes useful—useful to kings, movements, institutions, and identities. They appear when moral language is plentiful but moral coherence is thin; when worship continues, but trust is gone; when people still believe in God yet quietly suspect He is no longer doing anything.

That description fits our moment with unsettling accuracy.

Prophetic Times Are Always War Times

Every major prophetic era emerges amid conditions strikingly similar to our own:

Deep polarization.
Competing moral absolutes.
Religious institutions entangled with power.
A sense that everything important is at stake and nothing can be conceded.

In Scripture, prophets are not sent to calm those conditions. They are sent to interpret them.

They insist that history is not merely a contest of forces but a moral field in which actions accumulate consequences. They deny the comforting illusion that righteousness automatically belongs to one camp. Instead, they interrogate everyone—especially those most convinced of their own purity.

This is why prophets are never embraced by movements. Movements require loyalty. Prophets require truth.

The Prophets Would Not Choose Sides—They Would Examine Them

One of the most persistent modern misreadings of Scripture is the assumption that, if the prophets were alive today, they would be obviously aligned with our cause.

History says otherwise.

The prophets consistently rebuke:

Kings who invoke God while consolidating power
Priests who protect institutions at the expense of truth
Nations that confuse election with exemption
Movements that justify injustice by pointing to worse enemies

They oppose not only wicked outcomes but wicked reasoning. They dismantle the logic that says, “Because our cause is right, our methods are justified.”

In today’s terms, that means the prophets would unsettle:

The religious right when faith becomes a shield for power
The secular left when justice becomes unmoored from truth
Nationalists who confuse country with covenant
Activists who confuse outrage with righteousness

The prophetic voice is not left or right. It is vertical—aimed upward toward God and downward toward human behavior at the same time.

Our Moment Is Closest to Malachi’s

Among all prophetic settings, the moment of Malachi may be the closest parallel to our own.

Malachi does not speak into rebellion or exile. He speaks after the crisis has passed—after judgment, after return, after rebuilding. The Temple stands. Worship resumes. The people are back where they were supposed to be.

And yet something essential is missing.

What Malachi confronts is not unbelief, but disillusionment. A people who still practice faith but no longer expect transformation. A community that keeps the rituals while quietly renegotiating commitments—truth, marriage, leadership, justice—downward.

This is the most dangerous spiritual condition Scripture knows: not defiance, but cynical compliance.

That posture produces predictable results:

Leaders cut corners
Teaching becomes selective
Moral compromise becomes pragmatic
Faithfulness becomes negotiable

Malachi’s calm, disputational tone—“I have loved you.” “How?”—is precisely what a weary, post-trauma society requires. And it is precisely what our own moment resembles.

Prophets Versus the Politics of Absolute Innocence

Modern political and religious conflict is fueled by a single, corrosive assumption:
“Our side is righteous; therefore our actions require no restraint.”

The prophets exist to destroy that assumption.

They insist that:

You can be right in cause and wrong in conduct
You can oppose injustice unjustly
You can speak truth while violating covenant
God does not grade morality on a curve based on enemies

This is why prophets are hated by ideologues. Ideology requires moral immunity. Prophecy removes it.

In war times—cultural or literal—this makes prophets sound naïve to hardliners and cruel to idealists. They refuse the lie that hatred can be sanctified by the correctness of its target.

The Prophetic Warning About Religious Capture

One of the prophets’ most consistent warnings is this:
When religion fuses too tightly with political power, truth is the first casualty.

This does not mean faith should withdraw from public life. The prophets never advocate that. It means faith must never become dependent on power for relevance or protection.

They oppose:

State-approved righteousness
Temple systems that protect elites
Moral language used to silence critique

They would warn us today that:

When faith becomes a brand, it loses authority
When churches become political echo chambers, they stop being prophetic
When moral language is reduced to slogans, conscience atrophies

The prophets are not anti-institution. They are anti-corruption of institutions by fear and ambition.

Enemies, Evil, and Moral Restraint

In times of conflict, the prophets do something radical and deeply unpopular: they humanize enemies without excusing evil.

They condemn injustice.
They warn of judgment.
They call for repentance.

And still, they insist on restraint.

They refuse to let the existence of real evil justify the abandonment of moral coherence. They will not allow cruelty to masquerade as courage, or vengeance to pass as justice.

This is why prophetic ethics feel impractical during conflict. They slow down what war logic wants to accelerate.

What the Prophets Would Say to Religious People Today

Not “be louder.”
Not “take back the country.”
Not “withdraw and wait it out.”

They would say:

Guard truth more carefully than influence
Measure success by faithfulness, not victory
Stop explaining away moral compromise
Remember that God outlasts every regime
Refuse to mirror the behavior you condemn

This posture costs something. It always has. Prophets are rarely rewarded in their own time.

Why Prophetic Voices Are Rare in War Times

Because war—cultural or otherwise—rewards:

Certainty over humility
Loyalty over truth
Victory over integrity

Prophets offer none of these rewards. They offer clarity, accountability, and long memory.

That is why societies in conflict silence them, mock them, or domesticate them into harmless historical figures.

The Most Uncomfortable Prophetic Insight

Here it is, distilled:

The prophets were not sent because the wrong people were winning—
but because the right people were becoming unrecognizable.

That sentence applies with surgical accuracy to modern religious and political life.

How to Read the Prophets Faithfully Now

To read the prophets today is not to:

Find ammunition for culture-war arguments
Claim divine endorsement for policies
Prove that history is on your side

It is to ask:

Where have we confused conviction with cruelty?
Where have we defended truth while violating covenant?
Where have we mistaken being right for being faithful?

The prophets do not tell us how to win wars.

They tell us how to remain truthful, accountable, and human while living through them.

That, in every age—including ours—is the harder victory.

This is what I read on MLK’s Birthday

January 19, 2026.Reading time 57 minutes.

	AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER – UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King, Jr. 16 April 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid. Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative. In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation. Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants–for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?” We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change. Then it occurred to us that Birmingham’s mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer. You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue. One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured? Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws. I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity. You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible “devil.” I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the “do nothingism” of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies–a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime–the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle–have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as “dirty nigger-lovers.” Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago. But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows. In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular. I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?” Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists. There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department. It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers? If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me. I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty. Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr. Published in: King, Martin Luther Jr. Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.

The 400-Year Handoff Between the Last Prophet and the First Cry

January 13, 2026.Reading time 9 minutes.

The 400-Year Handoff

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

The space between Book of Malachi and John the Baptist is often called the 400 years of silence. That phrase is tidy—and misleading. Nothing about those centuries was empty. Empires rose and fell. Languages fused. Roads were laid. Synagogues multiplied. Expectations hardened. What fell silent was not history, but prophecy.

Malachi speaks at the far edge of the Old Testament, when the temple stands again but the heart has not returned with it. He diagnoses a subtler sickness than idolatry: weariness with God. Worship continues, but reverence has thinned. Obedience is procedural. Faith has become a habit rather than a hope. Malachi does not end with comfort. He ends with a hinge: remember the Law—and watch for the messenger. The sentence is left open on purpose.

Then the voice stops.

Four centuries pass. No canonical prophet stands up to finish Malachi’s thought. Instead, the world is quietly prepared. Persia yields to Greece; Greece yields to Rome. Greek becomes the common tongue; Roman roads knit the Mediterranean into a single nervous system. Israel learns to survive without a king, without a prophet, without obvious rescue. Scripture is read aloud in synagogues; law is studied; expectation migrates from repentance to anticipation. Judgment, many hope, will fall on others.

Into that long, loaded quiet steps a man in the wilderness.

John the Baptist does not sound new. That is the shock. He sounds ancient—abrasive, urgent, unmistakably prophetic. He does not flatter the faithful or soothe the powerful. He says what Malachi warned would need saying again: turn. Repentance first. Preparation before presence. The wilderness becomes the pulpit because the temple has grown too comfortable to hear.

To see the bridge clearly, imagine the handoff—not as a meeting in time, but as an exchange across it.

At the edge of silence, Malachi stands with the last word he was allowed to speak. Across the centuries, a voice gathers breath.

Malachi: I left the door open because it could not be closed with ink.
John: Then I will stand in the dust and finish the sentence.
Malachi: They mistook patience for absence.
John: Then I will tell them the waiting is over.
Malachi: I warned them the Lord would come suddenly.
John: And I will tell them to prepare—now.
Malachi: Fire is coming.
John: Then let it begin with cleansing.

The conversation is imagined, but the continuity is real. John does not introduce a new agenda; he reopens an unfinished one. Malachi promised a messenger “in the spirit of Elijah.” John arrives wearing that spirit plainly—unpolished, unafraid, uninterested in approval. He is not the destination; he is the threshold. His success will be measured by his disappearance.

And then comes the One John points to—Jesus Christ—the Lord Malachi said would come to His temple. Suddenly. Searching. Refining. The bridge does not end with John; it delivers history into its next act.

The genius of the 400-year handoff is that it reveals how God works when people stop listening. He does not shout louder. He prepares longer. When prophecy pauses, formation continues. When words cease, conditions ripen. The silence is not abandonment; it is orchestration.

Malachi closes the Old Testament facing backward and forward at once—anchored in Moses, aimed toward a messenger. John opens the New Testament doing the same—rooted in the prophets, pointing beyond himself. Between them stretches not a void, but a runway.

The handoff succeeds because it was never about eloquence or timing alone. It was about readiness. When John cries out, some hearts break instead of bristle. A remnant responds. The bridge holds.

And that is the quiet miracle of the 400 years: when the voice finally returns, it finds ears—scarce, imperfect, but ready enough for history to move again.

Who Wrote Book of Malachi if Not “Malachi”?

The short answer is: we don’t know—and many theologians think that’s intentional.
The longer answer is that scholars have proposed a few serious, restrained possibilities, none of which undermine the book’s authority or clarity.

The Main Scholarly Views

1. An Anonymous Prophet (“My Messenger” as a Title)

This is the majority scholarly position.

Malachi means “my messenger”
The book opens: “The oracle of the word of the Lord… by my messenger”
The prophet never gives a personal name, genealogy, or origin (unusual for prophets)

Many theologians believe Malachi functions more like:

“The Oracle according to the Messenger”
or “The Message of the Lord, delivered by His messenger”

In this view, the prophet deliberately recedes so the focus stays on:

God’s covenant lawsuit
the coming future messenger
the message rather than the man

This fits the book’s tone perfectly.

2. A Temple-Affiliated Prophet (Post-Exilic Reformer)

Another common view is that the author was:

a known but unnamed prophetic figure
closely tied to the Second Temple
likely contemporary with Ezra and Nehemiah

The issues Malachi addresses—
corrupt priests, improper sacrifices, divorce, tithes—
line up almost exactly with the reforms described in Nehemiah 13.

Because of this overlap, scholars often say:

Malachi sounds like the prophetic voice behind Nehemiah’s reforms.

Not the governor. Not the scribe.
But the conscience pressing them.

3. A Prophetic “School” or Editorial Tradition (Minor View)

A smaller group of scholars suggest the book may reflect:

a prophetic circle or school
preserving and shaping the message of a known preacher
similar to how some Psalms or wisdom texts developed

This view explains:

the tight structure
the disputation style (God speaks → people object → God answers)
the lack of personal narrative

But even here, scholars agree the book reflects a single coherent prophetic voice, not a patchwork.

Who It Is Probably Not

Not Ezra himself (different role, different literary style)
Not Nehemiah (administrator, not prophet)
Not a later Hellenistic editor (language and theology are firmly Persian-period)

Why the Anonymity May Be the Point

Malachi is the last prophetic voice before centuries of silence.

Ending the Old Testament with:

an unnamed messenger
promising another messenger
pointing beyond himself

is almost certainly deliberate.

The book says, in effect:

Do not look for the prophet.
Look for the One he points to.

That makes Malachi less a signature and more a signpost.

In One Clear Sentence

Most theologians believe the Book of Malachi was written by an anonymous post-exilic prophet, likely connected to the temple reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, with “Malachi” serving as a theological title—“my messenger”—rather than a personal name, fitting for the final prophetic voice before John the Baptist.

It’s a quiet ending—on purpose.

January 11 and the Long Memory of the Church

January 11, 2026.Reading time 6 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

January 11 is not a date that shouts. It doesn’t clang with bells like Christmas or blaze with candles like Easter. Instead, it stands quietly at the hinge of the Christian year, often bearing the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the moment when the Church turns from the mystery of Christ’s birth to the meaning of his mission. Historically, this date gathers together theology, liturgy, and the lived practices of the early Church in a way that is subtle—but foundational.

From Epiphany to the Jordan

In the earliest centuries, the Church did not separate Christmas, Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord as neatly as later calendars would. Epiphany—the “appearing” or manifestation of God in Christ—was originally a single, sweeping celebration. It included the visit of the Magi, the wedding at Cana, and, crucially, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

By late antiquity, Western Christianity began to distribute these themes across the calendar, while Eastern churches retained a more unified Epiphany focus on baptism. January 11, when it hosts the Baptism of the Lord, thus echoes this ancient layering: a reminder that Christ is revealed not only in a manger, but in water, voice, and Spirit.

The Gospel accounts describe Jesus Christ stepping into the Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist—an act that puzzled early theologians. Why would the sinless submit to a baptism of repentance? The Church Fathers answered not with logic alone, but with poetry and paradox: Christ enters the waters not to be cleansed, but to cleanse them.

Baptism Before There Were Baptisteries

For the early Church, this event was not merely historical; it was instructional. Baptism was the doorway into Christian life, often performed in rivers, lakes, or communal baths. Converts descended naked into the water, symbolically dying to their former life, and rose to be clothed in white—an enacted theology that echoed Christ’s own descent and rising.

January 11 therefore became a catechetical moment. Sermons preached around this feast explained what baptism meant: death and rebirth, adoption into God’s family, and incorporation into a community that spanned heaven and earth. This is why ancient lectionaries pair the Baptism of the Lord with readings about light, calling, and divine sonship. The Church was teaching people who they were, not merely what they believed.

The Voice, the Dove, and the Trinity

Church history shows a growing theological depth attached to this feast. By the fourth century, writers like Gregory of Nazianzus emphasized that Christ’s baptism is one of the clearest Trinitarian moments in Scripture: the Son in the water, the Spirit descending like a dove, and the Father’s voice declaring, “You are my beloved Son.”

This mattered profoundly in centuries when the Church was clarifying doctrine against confusion and heresy. January 11 was not abstract theology; it was a calendar-anchored confession of who God is. Long before creeds were memorized by congregations, the liturgical year taught doctrine by repetition and rhythm.

Saints Who Lived the Meaning

January 11 also carries the memory of saints whose lives embodied baptismal commitment. Among them is Theodosius the Cenobiarch, a fifth-century monastic leader who organized communal monastic life in Palestine. His title, “Cenobiarch,” means ruler of the common life—a reminder that baptism was never meant to be private spirituality. It was a public reorientation of life toward discipline, service, and shared obedience.

The Church’s habit of pairing major theological feasts with saint commemorations is not accidental. Doctrine becomes flesh in people. Baptismal vows take shape in monasteries, parishes, hospitals, and households.

January 11 as a Threshold

Historically, January 11 marks a turning. The Christmas cycle closes. Ordinary Time approaches. The infant in the manger is now revealed as the Son sent into the world. In church history, this date has functioned as a kind of spiritual handoff—from wonder to work, from revelation to responsibility.

The Church has long understood that faith cannot live forever in the glow of Christmas light. It must step into colder water. January 11 reminds Christians that the story does not move from birth straight to glory, but through obedience, humility, and vocation.

In that sense, this quiet date carries enormous weight. It tells the Church, year after year, that Christianity begins not with achievement, but with descent—into water, into community, into a calling that unfolds across time.

Happy Birthday to sister-in-law, Diane!

“Be Still, and Know That I Am God”

January 7, 2026.Reading time 7 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Today is the 40th anniversary of a day I wish had not happened. We were overly involved in giving Marriage Encounter weekends, chairing the PTA in our school, being almost a full-time volunteer at a new church we were building, running a business and raising a teenager. I had worked on a church finance report at my office, went home at 2:30 am, and was on a 7 am flight for an all-day meeting in College Station. I got home that night and could not remember a single thing about the meeting or even flying. It was days before I could recover from a meltdown, not of anger but disgust with myself for trying to be everything for everybody.

I am stealing Linda’s favorite Bible verse today. She repeats it very often and has it placed in a prominent spot in our house. It has become one of my favs, too. She repeats it in common voice. I read it as BE STILL! And know that I am God.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” The sentence is short, balanced, almost deceptively simple. Yet for centuries it has carried the weight of wars, exile, fear, worship, and quiet trust. Found in Psalm 46, this line is not a gentle suggestion whispered to people lounging in peace. It is a command spoken into chaos.

Psalm 46 opens with motion and violence: the earth giving way, mountains falling into the sea, waters roaring and foaming, nations in uproar, kingdoms tottering. The psalmist piles instability upon instability until the world feels unmoored. Only then comes the command: Be still. In the original Hebrew, the phrase carries the sense of “cease,” “let go,” or even “drop your weapons.” It is not passive calm; it is the deliberate ending of frantic striving. God is not saying, “Relax, nothing matters.” He is saying, “Stop acting as though everything depends on you.”

That context matters. This verse is often lifted out and framed as a personal mantra for stress relief, and it certainly speaks to the anxious heart. But originally it is cosmic in scale. God addresses the nations themselves—armies, rulers, systems, and powers—telling them to stand down and recognize who truly governs history. Human noise does not unsettle Him. Political turbulence does not confuse Him. Natural disasters do not surprise Him. Stillness is not for God’s benefit; it is for ours, so that recognition can happen.

To “know” God here is not mere intellectual assent. In biblical language, knowing is relational and experiential. It is the difference between reading about fire and feeling its warmth. Stillness creates the conditions for that knowledge. When activity, argument, fear, and self-justification pause, awareness sharpens. The mind stops racing long enough to perceive what was already true: God is present, sovereign, and unthreatened.

The psalm balances this command with reassurance. Just a few verses earlier we read that God is “an ever-present help in trouble.” Stillness is not abandonment. It is trust enacted. It is the refusal to panic as a form of faith. The river that “makes glad the city of God” flows quietly even as nations rage. The contrast is intentional. God’s sustaining power does not roar; it endures.

Across Scripture, this pattern repeats. Stillness precedes revelation. Moses stands at the Red Sea with no visible escape. Elijah hears God not in wind or earthquake or fire, but in a low whisper. Jesus sleeps in a storm while seasoned fishermen panic, then rises and stills the waves with a word. In each case, divine authority is revealed not through frantic motion but through unshakable calm.

In modern life, stillness is countercultural. We reward speed, productivity, instant reaction, and constant commentary. Silence feels unproductive, even irresponsible. Yet Psalm 46 insists that some truths cannot be grasped while running. Knowing God requires space—space for listening, space for humility, space for surrender. Stillness becomes an act of resistance against the illusion of control.

The verse ends with a promise: “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” God’s sovereignty is not fragile. It does not depend on our vigilance or anxiety. History bends toward His purposes whether we strain ourselves or rest in Him. Stillness does not delay His work; it aligns us with it.

“Be still, and know that I am God” is therefore both comfort and confrontation. It comforts the weary by lifting the burden of omnipotence from human shoulders. It confronts the proud by exposing how much noise we make to avoid surrender. In stillness, excuses fall away. What remains is God—present, powerful, and worthy of trust.

The strange irony is that the world does not become quieter when we obey this command. Wars may still rage. Markets may still swing. Illness may still come. But the soul grows anchored. Stillness does not change circumstances first; it changes perception. And with that change comes a steadiness that no external upheaval can easily steal.

In the end, the verse does not invite escape from reality. It invites deeper engagement with it—rooted not in fear or frenzy, but in the knowledge that God is God, and we are not.

A small confession: I was up until 2:30 this morning working on a project and loving it. Some of us never learn. LFM

Nathan and the Courage to Speak Truth to Power

December 14, 2025.Reading time 11 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Few moments in ancient literature capture the moral courage required to speak truth to power as vividly as the encounter between the prophet Nathan and King David. The scene is brief, almost understated, yet it exposes a problem as old as authority itself: what happens when power no longer hears the truth.

David, at this point in the biblical story, is not a fragile leader. He is Israel’s greatest king—military hero, national symbol, and political success. His reign is stable. His enemies are subdued. His legitimacy is unquestioned. That success, however, has begun to insulate him from accountability.¹

The Bible does not soften what happens next, and it is worth telling plainly.

What David Did

One evening, David notices a woman bathing from the roof of his palace. He learns she is married to one of his own soldiers, a man currently fighting on the front lines. David summons her anyway. As king, his request carries force whether spoken gently or not. She becomes pregnant.²

David now faces exposure. Instead of confessing, he attempts to manage the situation. He recalls the husband from battle, hoping circumstances will hide the truth. When that fails, David escalates. He sends the man back to war carrying a sealed message to the commanding general—an order placing him where the fighting is fiercest and support will be withdrawn.³

The man is killed.

The machinery of power functions smoothly. No inquiry follows. David marries the widow. From the outside, the matter disappears. Politically, the problem is solved. Morally, it has only been buried.

This is the danger Scripture names without hesitation: power does not merely enable wrongdoing; it can normalize it.

Why Nathan Matters

Nathan enters the story not as a revolutionary or rival, but as a prophet—someone whose authority comes from obedience to God rather than proximity to the throne. He is not part of David’s chain of command. He does not benefit from David’s favor. That independence is everything.⁴

Nathan does not accuse David directly. Instead, he tells a story.

He describes two men in a town. One is rich, with vast flocks. The other is poor, possessing only a single lamb—so cherished it eats at his table and sleeps in his arms. When a guest arrives, the rich man does not draw from his abundance. He takes the poor man’s lamb instead.⁵

David is outraged. As king, he pronounces judgment swiftly and confidently. The man deserves punishment. Restitution. Consequences.

Then Nathan speaks the words that collapse the distance between story and reality:

**“You are the man.”**⁶

In an instant, David realizes he has judged himself. Nathan names the facts plainly: David used his power to take what was not his, destroyed a loyal man to conceal it, and assumed his position placed him beyond accountability.

This is not a trap meant to humiliate. It is truth delivered with precision. Nathan allows David’s own moral instincts—still intact beneath layers of authority—to render the verdict.

Speaking Truth to Power Is Dangerous

Nathan’s courage should not be underestimated. Kings do not respond kindly to exposure. Many prophets were imprisoned or killed for far less. Nathan risks his position, his safety, and possibly his life. He cannot know how David will react. Faithfulness here is not measured by outcome but by obedience.⁷

Speaking truth to power is rarely loud. It is rarely celebrated. It requires proximity without dependence, clarity without cruelty, and courage without illusion. Nathan does not shout from outside the palace gates. He walks directly into the seat of power and speaks.

David’s response is remarkable precisely because it is not guaranteed:

*“I have sinned against the Lord.”*⁸

Repentance does not erase consequences. Nathan makes that clear. Forgiveness and accountability coexist. The Bible refuses to confuse mercy with immunity.⁹

Why This Story Still Matters

This encounter reveals something essential about power: authority tends to surround itself with affirmation and silence. Over time, wrongdoing becomes justified, then invisible. Institutions close ranks. Loyalty replaces truth. Image replaces integrity.

Nathan represents the indispensable outsider—the one who loves truth more than access and justice more than comfort. He does not seek to destroy David. He seeks to save him from becoming a king who can no longer hear.

Scripture does not present leaders as villains by default. It presents them as dangerous precisely because they are human. Power magnifies both virtue and vice. Without truth, it corrodes.¹⁰

The Broken Hallelujah

This is where Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah belongs—not as ornament, but as interpretation.

The song opens with David’s musical gift, his calling, his nearness to God:

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord…”

But Cohen does not linger there. He moves quickly to the roof, the bath, the fall:

“You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you.”

Cohen refuses to romanticize David any more than Nathan does. He understands that David’s story is not primarily about victory, but about collapse and confession. And he understands something many listeners miss: praise spoken after exposure cannot sound the same as praise spoken before it.

That is why the refrain matters:

“It’s a broken hallelujah.”

A cheap hallelujah is easy—praise without truth, worship without repentance, confidence without cost. It thrives where power is affirmed but never confronted.¹¹

A broken hallelujah is what remains when illusion is stripped away. It is praise that has passed through judgment. It is faith no longer dependent on image, position, or success. It is what David offers in Psalm 51, after Nathan leaves and the consequences remain.¹²

Nathan does not end David’s worship. He saves it from becoming hollow.

For Our Time

Nathan’s story is not ancient trivia. It is a permanent challenge.

Every generation builds systems that reward silence and discourage dissent—governments, corporations, churches, universities, families. Power still resists accountability. Truth still carries a cost. And praise without honesty still rings empty.

Speaking truth to power does not guarantee reform. It guarantees integrity.

Nathan spoke. David listened. And centuries later, a songwriter captured what that moment sounds like from the inside—not triumphant, not resolved, but honest.

Not every hallelujah is joyful.
Some are whispered.
Some are broken.
And those may be the ones worth hearing most.

Scripture References & Notes

David’s power and success: 2 Samuel 5–10
Bathsheba episode begins: 2 Samuel 11:1–5
Uriah’s death order: 2 Samuel 11:14–17
Nathan as prophet to David: 2 Samuel 7; 2 Samuel 12
Nathan’s parable: 2 Samuel 12:1–4
“You are the man”: 2 Samuel 12:7
Prophetic risk: cf. 1 Kings 18; Jeremiah 20:1–2
David’s confession: 2 Samuel 12:13
Consequences despite forgiveness: 2 Samuel 12:10–14
Power and accountability theme: Proverbs 29:2; Psalm 82
Empty worship critique: Isaiah 1:11–17; Amos 5:21–24
David’s broken praise: Psalm 51:16–17

Hallelujah

Song by Leonard Cohen ‧ 1984

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Leonard Cohen / Theresa Christina Calonge De Sa Mattos

When Faith is Slipping

December 10, 2025.Reading time 10 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
A long answer to a short question from Tuesday Morning Men’s Bible Study

“Granddad… my faith is slipping.”

“Granddad, can I tell you something and you won’t think less of me?
I feel like my faith in God is slipping away. I’ve prayed—truly prayed—for our family to heal, for hearts to soften, for conversations about the Lord to open again. These aren’t selfish prayers. They’re for relationships to be mended, for love to return, for estrangements to disappear.

But nothing changes.
Some hearts grow colder.
And any mention of God shuts everything down.

Why doesn’t God answer these good prayers?
Why is He silent when the need is so great?
I don’t want to lose my faith, Granddad…
but I don’t know how much more silence or tension I can take.”

**THE GRANDFATHER’S ANSWER:

A Loving Reassurance About the Awakening—The Kairos Moment God Has Appointed**

Come here, child. Sit beside me.
I want to tell you something about God’s timing, something Scripture calls kairos—the appointed moment, the perfectly chosen hour when God reaches the heart in a way no human effort ever could.

Before any other story, let’s start with the one Jesus Himself told.

THE PRODIGAL SON: THE PATTERN OF ALL AWAKENINGS

(Luke 15:11–24)

A young man demands his inheritance, leaves home, and wastes everything in reckless living (vv. 12–13). When famine comes, he takes the lowest job imaginable—feeding pigs—and even longs to eat their food (vv. 14–16).

Then comes the sentence that describes every true spiritual awakening:

“But when he came to himself…” (Luke 15:17)

That is the kairos moment.

What exactly happened in that moment?

Reality shattered illusion.
He saw his condition honestly for the first time.
Memory returned.
He remembered his father’s goodness.
Identity stirred.
He realized, “This is not who I am.”
Hope flickered.
“My father’s servants have bread enough…”
The will turned.
“I will arise and go to my father.” (v. 18)

Notice something important:

No one persuaded him.
No sermon reached him.
No family member argued with him.
No timeline pressured him.

His awakening came when the Father’s timing made his heart ready.

The father in the story doesn’t chase him into the far country.
He waits. He watches. He trusts the process of grace.

And “while he was still a long way off,” the father sees him and runs (v. 20).

Why this matters for your prayers:

You’re praying for the very thing Jesus describes here.
But the awakening of a heart—any heart—comes as God’s gift, in God’s hour, through God’s patient love.

The Prodigal Son shows us:
God can change a life in a single moment.
But He decides when that moment arrives.

This is the foundation.
Now let me walk you through the other stories that prove this pattern again and again.

1. Jacob at Peniel — The Wrestling That Revealed His True Self

(Genesis 32:22–32)

Jacob spent years relying on himself. But his heart did not change—
not through blessings,
not through hardship,
not through distance.

Only when God wrestled him in the night and touched his hip (v. 25) did Jacob awaken.

This was his kairos:

When his strength failed, his faith was born.

He limped away, but walked new—
with a new name, a new identity, and a new dependence on God.

2. Nebuchadnezzar — One Glance That Restored His Sanity

(Daniel 4:28–37)

After years of pride, exile, and madness, his turning point wasn’t long or gradual. It happened in one second:

“I lifted my eyes to heaven, and my sanity was restored.” (Dan. 4:34)

The moment he looked up was the moment God broke through.

Kairos is when God uses a single upward glance to undo years of blindness.

3. Jonah — The Awakening in the Deep

(Jonah 2)

Jonah ran from God’s call until he reached the bottom of the sea. Only there, trapped in the fish, did Scripture say:

“When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD.” (Jonah 2:7)

That remembering?
That was kairos.

When every escape ended, God opened his eyes.

4. David — Truth Striking in One Sentence

(2 Samuel 12; Psalm 51)

Nathan’s story awakened what months of hidden sin could not.
When Nathan said, “You are the man” (2 Sam. 12:7), David’s heart broke open.

He went from blindness to confession instantly:

“I have sinned against the LORD.” (v. 13)

Psalm 51 pours out the repentance birthed in that moment.

Kairos often comes through truth spoken at the one moment God knows the heart can receive it.

5. Peter — The Rooster’s Cry and Jesus’ Look

(Luke 22:54–62)

After Peter’s third denial, Scripture says:

“The Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (v. 61)

That look shattered Peter’s fear and self-deception.

He went out and wept bitterly—
not because he was condemned,
but because he was awakened.

Kairos can be a look, a memory, a sound—something only God can time.

6. Saul — A Heart Reversed on the Damascus Road

(Acts 9:1–19)

Saul was not softening.
He was escalating.

But Jesus met him at the crossroads and asked:

“Why are you persecuting Me?” (v. 4)

That question was a divine appointment—the moment Saul’s life reversed direction forever.

Kairos is when Jesus interrupts a story we thought was going one way and writes a new one.

7. What All These Stories Teach About Kairos Moments

Across all Scripture, kairos moments share the same attributes:

1. They are God-timed.

We cannot rush them. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

2. They are God-initiated.

Awakenings are born of revelation, not persuasion. (John 6:44)

3. They break through illusion and restore reality.

“Coming to himself” means the heart finally sees truth. (Luke 15:17)

4. They lead to movement toward God.

Every awakening ends with a step homeward.

Your prayers are not being ignored.
They are being gathered into the moment God is preparing.

8. Why This Matters for Your Family

You are praying for softened hearts, restored relationships, spiritual awakening.
Those are kairos prayers, not chronos prayers.

Chronos is slow.
Kairos is sudden.

Chronos waits.
Kairos transforms.

You can’t see it yet, but God is preparing:

circumstances
conversations
memories
encounters
turning points

just like the father of the prodigal knew that hunger, hardship, and reflection would eventually lead his son home.

The father didn’t lose hope.
He didn’t chase the son into the far country.
He trusted that God’s timing would bring his child to the awakening moment.

You must do the same.

**9. Take Courage, Sweetheart:

The God Who Awakened Prodigals Will Awaken Hearts Again**

The Prodigal Son’s turning point didn’t look like a miracle.
It looked like ordinary hunger.

David’s looked like a story.
Peter’s looked like a rooster.
Saul’s looked like a question.
Nebuchadnezzar’s looked like a glance.
Jonah’s looked like despair.
Jacob’s looked like a limp.

Kairos moments rarely look divine at first.
But they are.

And when God moves, hearts—no matter how hard—can turn in a single breath.

Don’t lose faith, child.
The silence is not God’s absence.
It is God’s preparation.

And when your family’s kairos moment comes,
you will say what the father in Jesus’ story said:

“This my child was dead, and is alive again;
was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:24)

Until then, hold on.
Your prayers are planting seeds that God will awaken in His perfect time.

The Divine Conspiracy: The Beatitudes and the Blessed Life in God

October 30, 2025.Reading time 13 minutes.

✨ Suggested by Dr Bobby Waite; Written by Lewis McLain & AI

A Study Edition Inspired by Dallas Willard

🌄 I. Setting the Scene — The Mountain and the Message

It was early in the ministry of Jesus. Word of His healings and authority had spread through Galilee. Crowds followed—farmers, fishermen, soldiers, widows, and scholars—all hungry for something more than spectacle.

When He saw them gathering by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus withdrew to a hillside. The slope formed a natural amphitheater where sound carried on the breeze. He sat down, the posture of a rabbi ready to teach, and His disciples drew near. Behind them stood the multitudes—hopeful, skeptical, wounded.

This is the setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), the heart of the Gospel story where the Teacher begins to describe life under the rule of God. Like Moses ascending Sinai, Jesus now delivers a new law—not on stone tablets, but upon human hearts. Yet this Lawgiver does not shout from thunderclouds; He speaks softly, face to face.

The sermon opens not with command but with blessing. The Master looks at His disciples—men and women of no special rank—and calls them the seed of a new creation.

“Seeing the crowds, He went up on a mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to teach them.” (Matthew 5:1–2)

Thus begins what Dallas Willard calls “the divine conspiracy”—the quiet, redemptive invasion of heaven into the ordinary world through those who choose to live as Christ’s apprentices.

🕊️ II. The Heart of the Divine Conspiracy

Willard writes that Jesus’ teaching unveils a simple but radical truth: the Kingdom of God is available now. It’s not about escape to heaven later, but participation with God in the present moment. The Sermon on the Mount is therefore the curriculum for life in the Kingdom—not rules for unreachable saints, but descriptions of ordinary people transformed by extraordinary grace.

“Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom is not an invitation to wait for heaven later; it’s a call to live under heaven’s rule now.” — Dallas Willard

📖 III. The Beatitudes — The Great Reversal

Each Beatitude opens with Blessed—the Greek makarios, meaning deeply happy, whole, or flourishing. Jesus pronounces God’s favor upon those the world overlooks or despises. Willard teaches that these are not virtues to attain, but conditions where grace appears. They describe what life looks like when heaven’s power meets human weakness.

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

To be poor in spirit is to know your need of God.
The self-sufficient rely on their own strength; the poor in spirit rely on grace.

Willard’s Insight:

“The poor in spirit are those who have learned that their life is not manageable on their own. They stand ready to receive the Kingdom as a gift, not as a wage.”

Reflection:
When have you discovered that self-reliance is not enough?
How did that humility become a doorway to grace?

2. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

Mourning is not weakness—it is sacred honesty.
Those who grieve over loss, sin, or injustice open their hearts to God’s healing compassion.

Willard’s Insight:
“The world says, ‘Get over it.’ Jesus says, ‘Bring it to Me.’ Mourning becomes holy when it leads us into the arms of divine comfort.”

Reflection:
What sorrow has drawn you closer to God?
How might you become an instrument of comfort to others?

3. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

Meekness is not weakness but power under control.
The meek trust God’s care more than their own control.

Willard’s Insight:
“The meek live without the need to manage others. They inherit the earth because they are content to let God govern it.”

Reflection:
Where do you sense God calling you to release control and rest in His authority?

4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

This is the longing for the world to be set right—within and without.

Willard’s Insight:
“This hunger is evidence of life with God already stirring within you. He alone satisfies the appetite He awakens.”

Reflection:
What injustices make your spirit ache?
How can you channel that hunger into faithful prayer and action?

5. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Mercy interrupts the world’s cycle of revenge.

Willard’s Insight:
“The merciful dwell in a rhythm of grace—they forgive because they live forgiven.”

Reflection:
Who in your life needs mercy from you today?
How can compassion replace resentment?

6. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

Purity of heart means singleness of desire—the will set wholly toward God.

Willard’s Insight:
“To be pure in heart is to will one thing: the good of God. When the eye of the soul is clear, everything becomes luminous with His presence.”

Reflection:
What distractions divide your heart?
How can simplicity of purpose restore your spiritual sight?

7. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

Peacemakers are builders of reconciliation, bearers of God’s family likeness.

Willard’s Insight:
“The peace of Christ is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative goodwill.”

Reflection:
Where can you build bridges instead of walls?
How might you embody the Father’s peace in tense spaces?

8. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)

Faithfulness invites friction with the world’s systems—but God’s presence sustains the faithful.

Willard’s Insight:
“Persecution is not failure; it is confirmation that the Kingdom has taken root.”

Reflection:
When has standing for truth cost you something?
What courage grows in hardship?

9. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” (Matthew 5:11–12)

Now the blessings become personal—addressed to every follower.

Willard’s Insight:
“Joy in persecution is not denial of pain but recognition of purpose. You are living from an eternal horizon.”

Reflection:
How can you keep joy alive when misunderstood or maligned?
What eternal perspective steadies your heart?

🧭 IV. Discipleship as Apprenticeship

To Willard, discipleship means apprenticeship—learning to live your actual life as Jesus would live it if He were you. It is not belief alone but training of the heart. He outlines three essentials:

Vision – seeing the Kingdom as real and desirable.
Intention – deciding to live as Christ’s student.
Means – practicing disciplines that reshape the inner life (prayer, solitude, service, study).

This “curriculum for Christlikeness” transforms not just conduct but character.

🌿 V. The Hidden Life in God

The “divine conspiracy” is that God’s revolution happens quietly—from the inside out.
It unfolds in unseen obedience, ordinary kindness, unseen faithfulness. It is “hidden” because the Kingdom’s greatest victories are inward: forgiveness over hatred, humility over pride, patience over fury.

“The revolution of Jesus is one of character, and it proceeds in secret until it transforms everything.” — Willard

Those who live this way already share in eternal life—the with-God life that begins now and never ends.

💬 VI. Discussion & Application

Which Beatitude most challenges your current view of “success”?
How might the Kingdom of God reshape your response to suffering or insult?
What practice could you begin this week to strengthen mercy, purity, or peace in your daily routine?
How does Jesus’ personal instruction of His disciples encourage your own apprenticeship today?

🕊️ VII. Poetic Reflection — The Quiet Kingdom

On a hill above the waters, where Galilee’s winds still sigh,
He sat upon the green earth, as heaven leaned close by.
No trumpet sounded His Kingdom, no banners caught the sun—
Yet love began its quiet reign, and the world was being won.

He spoke not to princes or scholars, but to hearts that barely stand,
To fishermen, widows, wanderers—the dust of a weary land.
He called them blessed, not broken; He named them heirs of grace,
And light began to shimmer on each upturned face.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, who bring nothing but their need;
For God will clothe their emptiness and sow His living seed.

Blessed are the mourners, whose tears the Father keeps;
For He will bend beside them, and comfort while they weep.

Blessed are the meek, whose strength is calm and mild;
The earth will bloom beneath their hands, the humble reconciled.

Blessed are the hungry hearts, that crave for what is right;
They’ll taste the bread of justice baked in heaven’s light.

Blessed are the merciful, who let forgiveness flow;
They drink the cup of kindness only mercy knows.

Blessed are the pure in heart, whose eyes are clean and still;
They’ll see the face of God in every field and hill.

Blessed are the peacemakers, who end the ancient fight;
Children of the Father, they walk in holy light.

Blessed are the persecuted, whose faith the world disowns;
Their crowns are forged of suffering; their thrones are living stones.

And still He whispers softly above the clash and din:
“My Kingdom is among you; it grows from deep within.”

Not built of force or empire, not won by sword or gain—
It rises where the heart surrenders, and love alone shall reign.

The crowd went home in silence, but heaven had begun;
The meek looked tall, the mourners sang, the poor outshone the sun.
And though the ages darken, His promise still is true—
The Kingdom’s quiet power still moves in me and you.

🌅 VIII. Closing Thought

The Divine Conspiracy is the Gospel’s hidden heartbeat:
God’s Kingdom is not far away—it is available now.
To live as Jesus’ apprentice is to walk daily in the light of that reality,
to join the ongoing miracle of heaven quietly transforming earth.

Consider Your Ways — A Call to the People of God

October 29, 2025.Reading time 12 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI; Influenced by Jody Gerber

📖 Introduction: Haggai and His Prophetic Moment

The book of Haggai stands like a trumpet blast in the closing decades of the Old Testament. Composed around 520 B.C., during the reign of Darius I of Persia, it records only four short prophecies—yet each is direct, dated, and divinely charged.

Eighteen years earlier, the first exiles had returned from Babylon under Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest. They laid the foundation of the temple with zeal (Ezra 3:8–10), but after facing opposition and discouragement, the work stopped. For nearly two decades the temple lay in ruins while the people built fine homes and pursued personal prosperity. Into this complacency came Haggai’s piercing message:

“Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: Give careful thought to your ways.” — Haggai 1:5 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

The Hebrew phrase śîm lēb literally means “set your heart upon.” God’s call was not simply to think but to turn the heart inward, to evaluate one’s path and reorder one’s priorities.

Haggai’s book unfolds in four precisely dated oracles:

A Call to Rebuild the Temple (1:1-15)
Encouragement for the Builders (2:1-9)
A Warning About Defilement (2:10-19)
A Promise of Blessing and Future Hope (2:20-23)

Through them, God declares that true worship is not architectural but relational—not measured in stone and cedar but in obedience and holiness. The dwelling He desires is not a structure of marble but a people of faith.

I. “Consider Your Ways” — The Prophetic Core

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: Give careful thought to your ways.” — Haggai 1:7 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

“You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough… You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” (Haggai 1:6) [Bible Gateway]

The frustration of fruitless labor was God’s mercy in disguise. He withheld blessing not to punish but to awaken. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little… Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.” (Haggai 1:9) [Bible Gateway]

When the people obeyed, “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel and of all the people, and they came and began to work.” (1:14) [Bible Gateway]
Reflection became repentance; repentance brought renewal.

II. Echoes Through Scripture — The Divine Rhythm of Reflection

1️⃣ In the Wilderness — Deuteronomy 8:2

“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart.” [Bible Gateway]

Testing is revelation. God already knows our hearts; the wilderness exposes them to us.

2️⃣ In the Psalms — Psalm 119:59-60

“I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes. I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands.” [Bible Gateway]

Reflection must lead to movement. Contemplation without obedience is sentiment, not sanctification.

3️⃣ In Exile’s Aftermath — Lamentations 3:40

“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” [Bible Gateway]

Here is national repentance: collective soul-searching that restores covenant life.

4️⃣ In the Wisdom Tradition — Proverbs 4:26

“Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.” [Bible Gateway]

Wisdom is not speed but steadiness—foresight rooted in reverence.

5️⃣ In Jesus’ Parables — Luke 15:17

“When he came to his senses…” [Bible Gateway]

The prodigal’s awakening is Haggai’s sermon in story form: conviction that leads home.

6️⃣ In Christ’s Letters — Revelation 2:5

“Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” [Bible Gateway]

From Moses to John, the call repeats: remember, repent, return.

III. The Church Is Not a Building

The temple in Haggai’s day pointed forward to something far greater—the living temple of the redeemed.

The True Meaning of “Church”

“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” — Matthew 16:18 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

The Greek ekklesia means “assembly” or “called-out ones.” It never refers to a building. As one commentary notes, “In the New Testament the church is always a people, never a place.” [Tabletalk Magazine]

A Living Temple of People

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood…” — 1 Peter 2:5 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Believers themselves are the stones, fitted together by grace, animated by the Spirit.

Members of God’s Household

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household…” — Ephesians 2:19-22 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Paul’s architecture is alive: Christ the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets the foundation, and believers the rising walls. Together they form a dwelling where God lives by His Spirit.

The Indwelling Presence

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” — 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Not the bricks, not the steeple, but the living community of faith.
Helpful commentary puts it plainly:

“In summary, the church is not a building or a denomination. According to the Bible, the church is the body of Christ—all those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.” [GotQuestions.org]

And:

“We often hear that the church isn’t a building; it’s people. Church isn’t where you meet. It’s who meets.” [logos.com]

These reflections guard us from confusing the place of worship with the people who worship.

IV. The Cycle of Spiritual Renewal

Stage	Scriptural Example	Meaning and Application
Reflection	“Give careful thought to your ways.” — Haggai 1:5 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]	Self-examination exposes the distance between God’s priorities and ours. It is the spiritual inventory that precedes revival.
Repentance	“Let us examine our ways and return to the Lord.” — Lamentations 3:40 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]	Reflection without repentance leaves us unchanged. Repentance re-aligns our hearts and restores communion with God.
Renewal	“The Lord stirred up the spirit of the people.” — Haggai 1:14 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]	When hearts respond, the Spirit reignites vision and energy. Obedience becomes joy; service becomes worship.

This rhythm—Reflection → Repentance → Renewal—is the heartbeat of every true awakening.

V. Applying “Consider Your Ways”

Personal Life

We, too, may live in paneled houses while God’s work lies unfinished. Our modern “paneled houses” might be careers, comforts, or reputations—good things that crowd out the best. If we are restless though busy, fruitless though tireless, the Spirit whispers Haggai’s question again: Consider your ways. [Bible Gateway]

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” — Matthew 6:33 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Church Life

When we treat the church as a building rather than a body, we invert the gospel’s order. Programs replace prayer, facilities replace fellowship, and success is measured in square feet instead of souls. The early church had no cathedrals but changed the world because it carried Christ within. [Bible Gateway]

“These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here.” — Acts 17:6 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Let our sanctuaries serve our mission—not define it. The church is living architecture, built of souls, cemented by love.

National Life

“You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.” — Haggai 1:9 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

A nation that values prosperity above piety soon finds its harvest thin. When morality erodes, so does stability. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.” — Proverbs 14:34 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

VI. Building with the Right Materials

“If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is.” — 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 (NIV) [Bible Gateway]

Not every project is praiseworthy. Gold and silver represent truth and love—enduring virtues refined by fire. Wood and straw symbolize efforts done for applause or ease. The true measure of our work is not visibility but viability before God. [logos.com]

Every life is a construction site. Each day lays another stone on the foundation of Christ. To build well is to live with eternity in view.

VII. The Temple That Lives

When Haggai called Israel to rebuild, his goal was not architecture but adoration. God desired a people whose hearts were His dwelling. Today that dwelling is the church—the living temple of those redeemed by Christ.

The church is not a cathedral but a community; not a monument but a movement; not a place of brick but a people of breath.

🌿 Poetic Meditation

We are the stones that breathe and sing,
The temple not of brick but being;
Each life a wall, each heart a flame,
Together bearing Jesus’ name.
Not vaulted roof nor gilded spire,
But humble hearts that God inspires;
Consider, soul, the path you tread—
Build living homes where Christ is Head.

🙏 Prayer

Lord God, search our hearts and stir our spirits.
Help us to consider our ways.
Forgive us when we have treated church as a building rather than as Your body.
Teach us to live as Your people—united in Christ, filled with Your Spirit, building one another up in love.
Make us living stones in Your spiritual house, shining as Your temple in the world.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Morning Has Broken: The Song That Welcomed the Dawn

October 28, 2025.Reading time 9 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Oh, how I loved Cat Stevens from the first time I heard him. I saw him the first time when he performed in Fort Worth in the 1970s. It listened to his albums over and over. It was clear he was searching for spiritual clarity. He apparently found a solution for himself after his brother gave him a copy of the Quran. After his conversion, he gave away or destroyed all of his awards and guitars. He changed his name to Yusuf Islam. Decades later, his adult son found his guitar on the market and bought it. It is said that Yusuf immediately started playing. A few years ago, Linda and I flew to Washington, DC, where he played to an audience at the Kennedy Center. It was a wonderful trip back to hear his classics again. LFM

Morning Has Broken: The Song That Welcomed the Dawn

I. A Hymn Born in Simplicity (1931)

In 1931, British author Eleanor Farjeon was asked to craft new words for the traditional Scottish-Gaelic tune Bunessan (from the Isle of Mull). She wrote Morning Has Broken—three short stanzas that treat each sunrise as a fresh echo of Creation. Birds, dew, gardens, and “the Word” cast ordinary morning light as a sacrament of renewal. First printed in Songs of Praise (1931), the hymn traveled quietly through hymnals for decades.

II. Steven to Cat Stevens: Crisis, Silence, and Re-making (1968–1970)

Steven Demetre Georgiou—later known as Cat Stevens and today as Yusuf Islam—grew up over his father’s Greek-Cypriot restaurant in London, with a Swedish mother, a pencil and sketchpad never far from reach. By 18 he had a record deal; by 1967 he’d had pop hits and relentless touring. Then, in 1969, illness struck hard: tuberculosis with a collapsed lung. He was hospitalized for months and then sent into nearly a year of convalescence and isolation.

That enforced stillness became a hinge in his life. He read widely (mysticism, philosophy, scripture), sketched and wrote, questioned fame, and began composing the introspective songs that would define his second career: “Father and Son,” “Wild World,” “On the Road to Find Out,” “Into White.” When he returned, it was with a new sound—acoustic, intimate, spiritually searching—and a new partnership with producer Paul Samwell-Smith. The comeback albums followed in quick succession:

Mona Bone Jakon (1970): the quiet re-entry.
Tea for the Tillerman (1970): a masterpiece of spare folk-rock and spiritual longing.
Teaser and the Firecat (1971): the companion volume—gentler, sunlit, and home to “Moonshadow,” “Peace Train,” and “Morning Has Broken.”
Stevens even painted the cover art—a child (Teaser) and a cat (Firecat)—an outward sign of the homemade sincerity of the era.

III. Finding a Hymn in a Hymnal (1971)

As Teaser and the Firecat neared completion, Stevens and Samwell-Smith wanted one more track that sounded like gratitude. Leafing through a hymnbook, Stevens found Farjeon’s Morning Has Broken. The text was brief, without a pop chorus, but it said exactly what his convalescent soul had learned: each day is a divine fresh start. “It fell into my lap,” he later said—less an idea than a gift arriving right on time.

IV. The Recording: Piano Like First Light

The arrangement needed light. Enter Rick Wakeman, a young session pianist (soon to join Yes). He improvised the now-famous piano prelude and interlude—those flowing, ascending figures that feel like sun lifting fog. Acoustic guitar, a modest rhythm bed, and Stevens’ hushed vocal kept the hymn’s humility while giving it living warmth. (Wakeman was initially uncredited, a footnote he’s mentioned ever since—ironically fitting for a song about unadorned grace.)

V. Release, Reception, and Reach (1971–present)

Issued late in 1971, the single bloomed slowly and then everywhere—Top-10 in the U.K., No. 6 on the U.S. Hot 100, and No. 1 on Adult Contemporary radio. It became a rare bridge between sacred hymnody and popular song, sung at school assemblies and charting on secular stations; used at weddings, dedications, and memorials; and re-introducing Farjeon’s text to churches that had forgotten it. For Stevens, the song sits on the arc that runs from illness → inward search → art as gratitude → later faith commitments and humanitarian work. For listeners, it proved a pop song can simply be thank you and still move the world.

VI. What the Verses Say (Paraphrased and Interpreted)

Verse 1 — The first morning, again
Morning opens like the world’s first dawn; birds break the silence like that first bird. Let all our singing and this very dawn become praise—new life springing from God’s speaking.

Verse 2 — Rain, light, and the garden
New rain gleams in sun; first dew pearls on fresh grass. Praise for sweetness in the watered garden—made whole where the Holy One has walked.

Verse 3 — Light we share, life we begin
Sunlight is ours; morning is ours—children of the same Light seen in Eden. So let joy rise with each dawn: every morning is God’s re-creation of the day.

Coda (Stevens’ reprise on record)
The album performance circles back to the opening stanza—musically and theologically saying: the first morning returns with every sunrise.

VII. Why It Endures

Simplicity that shelters depth: Three small verses, vast theology—creation as ongoing gift.
A voice recovered from silence: After TB and a season of doubt, Stevens chose wonder. You can hear recovery in the restraint.
Piano that paints light: Wakeman’s intro has become the sound of “daybreak” for multiple generations.
Common grace: It belongs equally to church pews and kitchen radios, to choirs and children.

VIII. Closing

Morning Has Broken is the sound of someone who nearly lost breath learning to love breath again. Farjeon’s parish hymn found its pilgrim singer; Stevens’ long quiet found its prayer. And the rest of us found a way to say, with the first bird and the last chord: thank You for today.

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Prophetic Times Are Always War Times

The Prophets Would Not Choose Sides—They Would Examine Them

Our Moment Is Closest to Malachi’s

Prophets Versus the Politics of Absolute Innocence

The Prophetic Warning About Religious Capture

Enemies, Evil, and Moral Restraint

What the Prophets Would Say to Religious People Today

Why Prophetic Voices Are Rare in War Times

The Most Uncomfortable Prophetic Insight

How to Read the Prophets Faithfully Now

The 400-Year Handoff

Who Wrote Book of Malachi if Not “Malachi”?

The Main Scholarly Views

1. An Anonymous Prophet (“My Messenger” as a Title)

2. A Temple-Affiliated Prophet (Post-Exilic Reformer)

3. A Prophetic “School” or Editorial Tradition (Minor View)

Who It Is Probably Not

Why the Anonymity May Be the Point

In One Clear Sentence

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

From Epiphany to the Jordan

Baptism Before There Were Baptisteries

The Voice, the Dove, and the Trinity

Saints Who Lived the Meaning

January 11 as a Threshold

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

What David Did

Why Nathan Matters

Speaking Truth to Power Is Dangerous

Why This Story Still Matters

The Broken Hallelujah

For Our Time

Scripture References & Notes

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AIA long answer to a short question from Tuesday Morning Men’s Bible Study

“Granddad… my faith is slipping.”

**THE GRANDFATHER’S ANSWER:

THE PRODIGAL SON: THE PATTERN OF ALL AWAKENINGS

What exactly happened in that moment?

Why this matters for your prayers:

1. Jacob at Peniel — The Wrestling That Revealed His True Self

2. Nebuchadnezzar — One Glance That Restored His Sanity

3. Jonah — The Awakening in the Deep

4. David — Truth Striking in One Sentence

5. Peter — The Rooster’s Cry and Jesus’ Look

6. Saul — A Heart Reversed on the Damascus Road

7. What All These Stories Teach About Kairos Moments

1. They are God-timed.

2. They are God-initiated.

3. They break through illusion and restore reality.

4. They lead to movement toward God.

8. Why This Matters for Your Family

**9. Take Courage, Sweetheart:

✨ Suggested by Dr Bobby Waite; Written by Lewis McLain & AI

🌄 I. Setting the Scene — The Mountain and the Message

🕊️ II. The Heart of the Divine Conspiracy

📖 III. The Beatitudes — The Great Reversal

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

2. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

3. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

5. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

6. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

7. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

8. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)

9. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” (Matthew 5:11–12)

🧭 IV. Discipleship as Apprenticeship

🌿 V. The Hidden Life in God

💬 VI. Discussion & Application

🕊️ VII. Poetic Reflection — The Quiet Kingdom

🌅 VIII. Closing Thought

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI; Influenced by Jody Gerber

📖 Introduction: Haggai and His Prophetic Moment

I. “Consider Your Ways” — The Prophetic Core

II. Echoes Through Scripture — The Divine Rhythm of Reflection

1️⃣ In the Wilderness — Deuteronomy 8:2

2️⃣ In the Psalms — Psalm 119:59-60

3️⃣ In Exile’s Aftermath — Lamentations 3:40

4️⃣ In the Wisdom Tradition — Proverbs 4:26

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
A long answer to a short question from Tuesday Morning Men’s Bible Study