Nathan E. Lewis

Read the Book of Ruth in one sitting, once weekly in preparation of hearing the Gospel preached from it. The following questions are designed to aid you in your personal and small group study. The book recommendations will help you in further study as you choose to pursue it. Pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten you, to apply this beautiful story to your mind and heart, to your faith and to your obedience. Pastor Nathan Lewis is preaching six sermons from the Book of Ruth this October and November at Evergreen in Beaverton and Chehalem Valley in Newberg. You may read his sermon scripts at his blog. Using the study guide below, look for more questions, resources, and quotations as the weeks unfold. Interact with Nathan and let him know what you are learning from the Holy Scriptures. Continue reading »

(Miguel Hidalgo, Mexican Revolutionary Immortalized in the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco)

Powerfully controversial and painfully prophetic, Jose Clemente Orozco’s murals in the center of Guadalajara champion freedom, the common man, truth, and courage. When we take mission teams to Guadalajara to support the gospel through relief for the poor, children’s programs and relationship building with our Mexican friends, we reserve several hours to view the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco. Continue reading »

In preparation to preach Psalm 84 I have been listening to Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem over and over again, allowing the beauty of the music wash over me. Most of the memorials and funerals I have attended have rightly given time for loved ones to speak about the deceased and yet I have come away wishing to hear more divine consolation flowing from the very words of God. Brahms intentionally chose the words of Scripture (and yes, a few Apocryphal texts) as the words of his Requiem and I would rest well in my casket until the final day of resurrection should the Requiem be the only words spoken at my funeral (if only I could afford the Oregon Symphony and a choir!) In the fourth movement, the center of the Requiem, Brahms set some of the lines of Psalm 84 to music and it is a moving and abiding comfort. Indeed for many in western civilization, Psalm 84 is ever connected to this masterpiece. Recently, members of the congregation I serve have laid to rest their beloved and I can think of few sources of comfort so powerfully assembled as Ein deutsches Requiem. Below is the text of the Requiem with my inserted notes. Continue reading »

I am reading Daniel Radosh’s “Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture,” published in 2008 by Simon & Shuster. Radosh describes himself on page 2 as a “liberal New York Jew in my middle-thirties.” Half-way through the book, I am wondering, “how does he see the problems of the evangelical/fundamentalist movement so clearly?” I am also asking, “Why do I agree more with a liberal New York Jew in his middle-thirties, than I do with many of my evangelical, fundamentalist family and friends?” Please do not tell anyone that I am recommending that you read this book, because I am not doing so. If you are an evangelical Christian in the mainstream of Christian pop culture, then you will be disgusted, if not offended, by Radosh’s presentation of Christian pop culture. You will think that he is bitter, critical, doesn’t understand the church and is bereft of the Holy Spirit. But I am writing to tell you that part of common grace is God allowing a liberal New York Jew to yell out, “The emperor’s naked!” Here is a man who does not embrace the gospel but he knows that a large segment of the church has at least blurred the gospel and is interested and vested in that which is not the gospel. It’s chilling. Continue reading »

Occasionally over the past 20 years of my pastoral ministry, a member of our congregation will invite me to an exit interview. Some of the conversation goes like this: “God is calling me to change churches but I don’t want to lose your friendship. You have been a good pastor and I am hoping that you will still drop by and smoke a cigar with me.” In the past I would respond by saying: “There are many good reasons for you to change churches, so don’t read any bitterness or jealousy into my response. Go in peace, but I will have to give my pastoral care and friendship to members of my congregation and those people who are lost yet in my web of relationships, so that I might give to them the gospel. All that to say that I will no longer be able to drop by to smoke that cigar with you. Why don’t you ask your new Pastor to drop by and visit with you in your home?” I kid you not, the most usual response is: “You’ve got to be joking. My new Pastor is the Minister of a church of 5,000 members and so I could never expect him to come visit me and spend time with me personally.” Continue reading »