The Wycliffe Blog - Vestigia Dei

Vestigia Dei  – is a Latin term meaning “traces of God.” As a theological term it is associated with natural theology – that is, the view that there are vestiges of God within creation. We’ve chosen this term as the title of the Wycliffe College blog because our hope is that through these writings, readers might glimpse evidences for God as our writers interact with the wider world. 

Lissa M. Wray Beal

Walking the Second Half of Life

By Lissa M. Wray Beal

In my 50th year, I walked the great labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. It was an intentional journey, meant to mark my entry to the “second half” of life. Some way into the silent prayer walk I became weary – a feeling that reflected my then-current life and ministry context. Yet as I continued, I surprisingly gained new vigour and went on with strength and joy to the labyrinth’s centre which...

Mon, March 04, 2024

hope in darkness

Where is God?: Finding God in the Depths of Suffering

By Boram Lee

Two decades ago, in response to Christ’s call to offer care and counseling for the suffering, I embarked on a journey of caregiving. Throughout my now twenty-two years of serving as a psychotherapist and pastoral caregiver, I have immersed myself deeply in the realities of human suffering and confronted the prevailing darkness within our society.

During my time as a hospital chaplain in one of the United States’ largest trauma...

Thu, February 22, 2024

Choose Joy

Choose Joy

By Shelly McLagan

When my kids were little, I always started their days with prayer. Just before leaving for school, we would hold hands and I would pray over them. As they got older, certain themes began to arise and I wrote down a few lessons from Scripture that I thought were important truths for them to remember. I typed it up to look pretty and stuck it on the door so we...

Tue, February 20, 2024

Wycliffe community

Being at home in the body for now

By Mark W Elliott

Now that the pandemic is behind us, I’m now something of an exception – that is, I am someone who still spends more days away from Wycliffe than in college. However, at a time when so much these days is advanced and effected by email and virtual communication, I’ve also become aware of the value of the college community. For “being together in the body,” as Paul once called it...

Mon, February 12, 2024

Peter Publicly Professes Jesus by Right Rev. Richard Gilmour 1904

The Good Thing: Thoughts on the Confession of St. Peter

By Catherine Sider Hamilton

Let me begin with the story of two Rhodes Scholars. One is named William Jefferson Clinton. He went to Georgetown University on scholarship, Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School. He served as the 40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas and before that was Arkansas’ Attorney General. In 1992, Clinton became President of the United States and in 1996 the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to...

Thu, January 25, 2024

A troop of camels in the desert

Magi at the Manger: A Hermeneutical Meditation for Epiphany

By Joseph Mangina

One of the most treasured items that gets hauled out of storage in our household each Christmas season is the crêche, or Nativity scene. Ours is a simple affair. It is composed of wooden folk-art figures made, as I recall, in Costa Rica. We see gentle Mary, kneeling in wonder before the child she has just delivered, and faithful Joseph, holding a lamp. A shepherd has just wandered in, accompanied...

Mon, January 22, 2024

Stephen Andrews

Epiphany: a season of evangelism

By Stephen Andrews

‘For the God who said, “Out of darkness light shall shine,” has caused his light to shine in our hearts, the light which is knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4.6)

John Stott wrote, ‘If the gospel is the “good news” it claims to be, and if it has been entrusted to us, we incur guilt if we do not pass it...

Fri, January 12, 2024

Advent - Peace Candle

Peace like a River

By Peter Robinson

On the second Sunday of Advent we anticipate and celebrate the promise that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, has come to bring peace into the world. In the face of so much hubris, greed, polarization, division, and war around the globe, the promise of peace might seem a distant and elusive dream. The suffering of so many people in too many places awakens deep sorrow (and at times anger) in...

Thu, November 30, 2023

King David Playing the Harp by Gerard van Honthorst

Blood, heart, and data: An imperfect reflection on what’s real

By Scott Mealey

“And behold [David], you are caught in your own evil, for you are a man of bloodshed!” (from II Samuel 16:8)[1]

“…‘I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My heart…’” (from Acts 13:22)

When I was a young man working in my first church in Bangor, Maine, I spent a long season reading through I and II Samuel, reflecting on the life of David. At the...

Tue, November 28, 2023

Stephen Chester

Home: The Family of Abraham

By Stephen Chester

It is often emphasized how radical the apostle Paul was in proclaiming that, through faith in Christ, Gentiles can enter into the people of God without first becoming Jewish and taking on obedience to the Mosaic Law: “those who believe are the children of Abraham” (Gal 3:7). What is less often noticed is that Paul is here simultaneously at his most traditional. It simply never occurs to him to say...

Mon, November 13, 2023