DET

It’s been nine months since I last posted (Scott came through with a post in the meantime - thank you, Scott!). Thankfully, that doesn’t mean I’ve been completely intellectually dormant, however. One of the things that absorbed the all-too-limited bandwidth that I have to give to theology in my current stage of life was, perhaps surprisingly, preaching. I did my share of preaching back in seminary, but I haven’t made it a habit since then. However, my family’s home congregation is currently in the midst of pastoral transition and I offered to plug some gaps over the summer. Consequently, I wrote and preached my first sermons in well over a decade. As it happens, Ephesians 1 was presented to me by the lectionary for the first Sunday that I stepped into the pulpit. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ephesians, and how could I pass up the opportunity to preach about election in a Presbyterian church? So, I didn’t pass it up. The sermon was entitled “Choices.” But that passage fro