Author: Ron Simkins
Ron Simkins
– January 7, 2015
A member of our leadership team asked me recently, when you say that you are sometimes disappointed in yourself and/or in New Covenant, what are you referring to? That was a good question. Although there could be many specifics to a long answer, it is clear to me what the short answer is: My ideal
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Ron Simkins
– January 1, 2015
Many years of pastoring have taught me many things about the Bible that God and God’s people have saved for us through the centuries and millennia. In the past two blog posts, I have noted a few of those lessons; in this one I will share six more thoughts on what I have learned about the
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Ron Simkins
– December 6, 2014
The Bible is an invaluable gift in my personal relationship with God. More importantly, it is a gift that has allowed a community of faith to be sustained for two millennium around the life and teachings of Jesus and the amazing and continuing acts of God through Jesus. In the last post on this same topic,
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Ron Simkins
– November 17, 2014
I love the Bible. I love reading the Bible, and I love reading the writings of those who speak intelligently and passionately about the Bible. I love it so much and have spent so much time in it that I’ve found I’m more familiar with its overall big picture contents than the majority of pastors I
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Ron Simkins
– November 1, 2014
In order to live with all of the data that comes into our lives, we humans must categorize and organize. We can’t fully avoid it. This involves naming –people, groups, animals, and things. It can be a good thing to be able to name/label/categorize, in many different situations. The Genesis writer includes “naming” as one
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Ron Simkins
– October 16, 2014
My connection to church began when my parents went to the church building daily to pray for me when I was still a fetus in my mother’s womb and my father was a young pastor in a southern Indiana town. The only time when “the church” was not a part of my life was a couple
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Ron Simkins
– October 1, 2014
Recent events around the world—including those in Ferguson, MO, just a few miles away from where I sit as I write—underscore what we all should know, but too easily ignore: Prejudice against those who are “other” is a rampant human sin, both at a personal level and at the systemic level of all societies. And, this
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Ron Simkins
– September 11, 2014
When Donna and I decided that it was OK for me to pass up the opportunity to finish a paid for PhD in theology and the assurance of a future position as a professor in seminary, we thought we were committing to being in Champaign-Urbana for three more years. Since our original plan had been
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Ron Simkins
– August 30, 2014
This may seem to be a strange follow up to the first two posts in this “What I have learned” series, which were about Ideals and Reality and Knowledge, but this lesson has been every bit as important to my growth as the others (which I found much more naturally inclined to pursue). I will never be
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Ron Simkins
– August 20, 2014
As a young pastor/scholar who was fresh off of years of studying theology in seminary, and then philosophy in the University’s PhD program, the goal toward which I was driven was to be the person who could answer every question – mine and anyone else’s. I might not have had the gall to articulate it
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