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Body Language

I love the way the kingbird feeds by acrobatics from the trees along the lake. She lunges from her branch above the water to snatch what I can't see, or plunges down and curls around the bug she catches. I love the way that Levi takes communion at the rail. I kneel as he stands next to me, stocky, ruddy, ancient, undistracted, with his hands cupped out and his eyes half closed. When I'm at the cottage by myself, I…
Daniel Meeter
October 1, 2011
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Twenty-Seven Years with the Belhar Confession

I have loved the Belhar Confession for twenty-seven years. I am proud that the Reformed Church in America (RCA) has adopted the Confession as a fourth doctrinal standard. But now we have to live with it and let ourselves be formed by it. Let me give a testimony of my experience of the Belhar and then offer some observations on how the Belhar has been forming the RCA while we considered it and of how it may form us in…
Daniel Meeter
June 1, 2011
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Catenary: The Curve of a Hanging Chain

I learned it from Meredith Kline (The Structure of Biblical Authority), who got it from George Mendenhall. We've had it wrong on the "two tables" of the law. It's not that the law is divided in two; it's that each stone tablet had a full copy of the law. One copy was for God, and one copy was for Israel, like ancient suzerainty treaties and modern contracts. There is no division in the actual text of the Ten Commandments, either…
Daniel Meeter
May 1, 2011
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Papageno

Karl Barth famously wrote that in heaven all the official music is Bach, but in private God listens to Mozart. I'm jealous for Bach, my favorite composer, but just listen to the second act of The Magic Flute. Is there any music sweeter and more joyful than that final duet between Papageno and his Papagena? Papageno, a baritone, is the comic birdcatcher who accompanies prince Tamino, the tenor and, ostensibly, the hero. Tamino is earnest and serious, while Papageno wears…
Daniel Meeter
January 30, 2011
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Observations on the World Communion of Reformed Churches

It was my great privilege to attend the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this past June. I was able to attend only the first half, and I was not a delegate, just an accredited "observer" for the Reformed Church in America (RCA). But, while the full news and reports of the Uniting General Council are available from many sources, it seems fitting that I as an observer make a few…
Daniel Meeter
December 1, 2010
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The Ordeal of the Sermon

Every Sunday night I repeat the same dumb little joke. I say to my wife, "Hey hon, guess what I have to do tomorrow." She obliges with, "I don't know, what?" And then I say, "I have to make another sermon." Ha ha! I think it was David H. C. Reid who said that Sundays come at a preacher like telegraph poles through a train window. I know a Presbyterian minister who recently became a senior pastor, after having been…
Daniel Meeter
August 1, 2010
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An Unexpected Benefit of Weekly Communion

We practice weekly communion in my congregation, and one of the unexpected benefits has been the spiritual empowerment of my elders. They are becoming active ministers within the context of our services each week. When I accepted the call to this congregation eight years ago, I was up front with my desire that I wanted to institute weekly communion. My predecessor had prepared the way with seasonal weekly communion, such as every Sunday in Lent. The consistory went along with…
Daniel Meeter
December 1, 2009
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How A-Rod Can Be Saved

In the summer of 1979 I was watching television on a Sunday afternoon with Dave Henion at his house in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Dave was an elder at the Riverside Reformed Church in Paterson, where I supplied the pulpit as a senior seminarian. We were watching the Yankee game, and the pitcher was Luis Tiant, and he was pitching a two-hitter. His fastball was hot and his curve was sharp and he was catching the corners. He was cagey…
Daniel Meeter
May 1, 2009
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Windows and Worldviews

In my childhood, when it was my turn to do the dishes, one of my diversions was to use a tall glass as an upside-down periscope. You know, you poke the empty glass down through the suds and you can see into the water and examine the stuff at the bottom of the sink. The cool thing was how the water made the forks and knives look bigger and closer. I offer this as a metaphor for how the great…
Daniel Meeter
February 1, 2009