Skip to main content

Let's Learn Together!

My name is Danny Taylor, a tall skinny guy from the East Side of the Glass City.  I am a sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, the husband of one (a smokin' hot blonde), dad of 3, lover of music (especially U2 and the Arcade Fire), proud owner of a solid spruce Martin DCX1E, and fan of Detroit Sports.  I am also a Sunday School teacher, and a student of the Bible.

I believe that in the Bible are words spoken by a loving God, to a fallen humanity; a message of grace and mercy relevant to all people everywhere.  If we want to know what God is like, what he expects out of us, and what he did on our behalf, the Bible is probably the best place to get all that information.  However, in spite of the fact that we live in an age of limitless access to the Bible in countless translations, the Bible is perhaps the most mis-interpreted and mis-understood (least read?) piece of literature circulating on the face of the earth today.  So here I am, trying to do my part to stem misinformation and misunderstanding.

I am a student first.  I have no illusion that what I believe about a given passage is infallible.  In fact, I have found in my short little life that I have changed positions on various individual topics (baptism and the end-times in particular), and there is no reason not to believe that in the future, I might believe something different than what I believe right now.  (That being said, I do hold an MDiv from a pretty tough school, so the flip-side of that coin is that I am confident about what I do believe).  There is far more that I may learn than what I can teach.  With that in mind, I invite you along on my own educational journey.  Perhaps we may learn together.

As a rule of thumb, I will try to keep my posts under 1500 words.  I violate that all the time, but at least attempting to do that will keep individual posts from getting long-winded.  That way I am more likely to cut out the fluff, make my point, and then shut the heck up.  Additionally, I will try to make it so that my posts will go along with what I am teaching in the Sunday School class that I teach.  That will force me to have some kind of structure to what I'm saying and prevent my thoughts from wandering aimlessly.

Finally, I invite your feedback.  I am also under no illusion that you will always (or ever) agree with me, and learning is best done in community through dialogue anyway.  You may have a different perspective on a given part of the Bible that is relevant and needs to be heard, or may simply believe something completely different.  If God is infinite (and I believe he is), then there will never be a time where we will exhaust all there is to God.  Both in this life and in the next, we will always be learners.  I am learning and I invite you to come along.  Let's learn together!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Autism, Tylenol, and Homecoming

Last Saturday, my son went to Homecoming. He didn’t have a date, but he was far from alone. Eight special-ed students got into their suits with sloppily-knotted ties, their glittery dresses and freshly painted nails. They met at Chick-fil-a, throwing back waffle fries and lemonade like it was an open bar. Their parents forced them to pose in a hundred different locations for pictures, and they voiced their objection through smiles and gritted teeth.   We arrived to the venue a good thirty minutes before the dance was to start, while the DJ crew and decorations committee were still setting up. The Northview school administration (second to none in Ohio!) was kind enough to let them in early to take even more pictures. When their patience had run dry and they were no longer willing to stand for even just one more photo op, my son went to the DJ and made the first song request of the night: “Welcome to New York.” While the rest of Northview’s student body was filtering in, Matthew had...
1 comment
Read more

Who do we blame? Lessons from a tiny piece of trash

For a brief moment early in my married life, I worked at a shoe store. My boss was a very even-keel kind of guy. He was jovial; “merry,” some might say. Only once did I see him really upset and it was over—of all things—a receipt.   Because random Thursdays in February don’t see a lot of foot traffic, it was a rather slow day in the store. So to test us, he casually dropped a paper receipt right in the main aisle—a small piece of trash visible from any angle in the store. Then he watched. Over the course of an 8-hour shift, as many as six different employees simply walked right over that receipt. We weren’t assisting customers or addressing some emergency. We were just tending a store that didn’t really need tending. Later that night, the boss laid into us for ignoring that small piece of trash. Broadly, it reflected a store that was unclean and unkempt. Narrowly, it reflected a retail staff that simply didn’t care.   And why? “It wasn’t my fault.” “I’m not the one who put it ...
Post a Comment
Read more

An 8th Grader Gives a TED Talk

My daughter just recently had an assignment at school where students were required to give a “TED Talk.” The focus was deliberately vague—speak on something for which you are a bit of an expert (by 8th-grade standards, of course), some experience that had a profound impact on your life, or perhaps something you just find meaningful. The topics reflected the kinds of conversations that normally happen in the halls of a middle school:   "Why Baseball is the Greatest." "The Value of Studying Math." "Cafeteria Lunch Choices are Horrible." Some were rather surprising. One classmate spoke about his grandpa’s military service. Another questioned the morality of plastic grocery bags. Yet another spoke deeply about his Christian faith.   My daughter equally wanted to address something faith-based, but with a particular focus: her Papa’s experience with dementia. Since moving back to Ohio, she's had a front row seat to my dad’s very rapid cognitive decline. This...
Post a Comment
Read more