Rebecca Hein's Page

There’s more to the New Testament story of the rich young man than the passage in Matthew 19:16-26 records. This additional information, when I recently learned it, explained many things to me and deepened my understanding of the episode.

In brief the story is: A rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. After Jesus establishes that the young man has kept all the commandments, the man further inquires, “What do I still lack?”

“Go,”…

Church is supposed to be the place where Christians gather to learn from God and to draw closer to Him. However, too often church actually buffers the believer’s possible encounter with God.

The crux of really knowing God is listening to Him. Therefore, it’s easy to see how a certain component of a church service is not listening: hymn-singing and group prayers, for example. However, when the sermon is given, the congregation listens. All present assume that the minister is…

Many people who have not chosen God still feel they have chosen to be good. They assume it’s possible to achieve goodness without listening to God, and this clearly implies that they feel they have not chosen evil. This is a plausible view, because only a tiny percentage of atheists and agnostics are pursuing an obviously wicked agenda. Most have good intentions. They want to do right. This profile can also fit many religious people, as we shall see.…

If you work full time, and also have family obligations, it may be difficult to find even an hour a week in which to sit down, be quiet, and listen to God. He wants all our attention, and for us to listen with our whole hearts and beings. How does this accord with a busy life in which we fulfill our responsibilities to ourselves and others?

God looks at our hearts and our intentions. There is a potential distraction more severe than daily life: our divided loyalty. If we…