Peripatetic Pastor

Author: Clay Libolt

  • SABBATH IN A TIME OF GREED: IN PRAISE OF LIMITS

    Limits In a fine new book on the Sabbath (Israel’s Day of Light and Joy: The Origin, Development, and Enduring Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath. Eisenbraun’s, 2024), Jon Levenson lingers on Exodus 23:10-12. The passage begins with the sabbatical year: Six years you shall farm your land and gather its produce. For the seventh you…

  • THINKING ABOUT BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

    Reading the Bible with Joy Authority in Crisis We face a crisis of authority. Or, rather, crises of authority. Some of these are in matters of faith. My most recent post on reading the Bible ended with a question about biblical authority: When does the Bible say to the church: “Thus says the Lord”? When…

  • COMPANIONS

    A Sabbath Meditation I’ve grown old without ever meaning to. The years have slipped by, and now in this new passage of life, companionship has become precious. Perhaps I’m brought to these thoughts because an old friend recently died, a companion from childhood. At his graveside service, I read and reflected on Psalm 23.  The middle…

  • THE JOURNEY

    The Bible as a Guidebook on the Journey into the Heart of God Last week I published a piece on reading the Bible: five suggestions for reading with joy. My (first) five were: So, five suggestions. They are not the last. I have more, to which I’ll come in future posts. But first before going…

  • THE RELEVANCE OF THEOLOGY

    Reflections on Martin Luther King Day Sometimes theology—thinking carefully about God—seems utterly irrelevant. Today, Martin Luther King Day, as I write this, is such a day. On this day, we think again of the dream that has been at the heart of who we are as Americans, a dream forever outside our grasp and yet…

  • READING THE BIBLE WITH JOY

    Five Proposals for Discovering the Joy of the Bible I’ve lately been puzzling over the Bible. Not the Bible itself but the joylessness of its readers. Or would be readers. In the minds of many the Bible is a forbidding and severe book, a book of thou-shalt-nots. For others, an ancient self-help book that doesn’t…

  • HEROD, THE MAGI, AND CHRISTMAS 2025

    When the Bible Speaks Directly to Our Time The scriptures sometimes jump off the page into the headlines, as if they were written yesterday. Sunday’s gospel reading was a case in point. For churches that follow the liturgical year Sunday was the second Sunday after Christmas. The gospel reading was the last half of the…

  • THE INFANTILIZATION OF THE HUMAN RACE

    How Theology Reduces Us to Children A couple of posts back (available here), I reflected on biblical views of evil—evil as the coming apart of things. I mentioned in that essay that the T of Tulip (total depravity) in Reformed theology has a way of letting us off the hook. We need not, in fact in…

  • SACRAMENTAL COMMUNITY ONE MORE TIME

    A Note on Retrieving Church Just a note. In my last post, on sacramental community (“Retrieving Church”), I missed what might be the most important point. In the somewhat wonky center section of the essay (the part I suggested you can skip), I described a shift in medieval thinking about the body of Christ. In…

  • RETRIEVING CHURCH

    Congregations For years I stayed put. As I like to tell the story, River Terrace Church, the congregation I served for 31 years, gave me an office—a great corner office facing the campus of Michigan State University—and I didn’t want leave. All I needed was that office. A salary in addition was more than anyone…