(18 minutes) The gospel is the Christian narrative of God’s great revelation in Jesus of Nazareth. This Christian story is true both metaphorically and historically. It is saturated with word and deed, Spirit and flesh, heaven and earth, transcendence and immanence, mind and body. The story begins before time, space,… Continue reading
One might wonder if all this analysis is no more than a pedantic waste of time. Actually, it gets to the heart of Paul’s understanding of the gospel. Continue reading
Read the Scripture One of the persistent questions plaguing the faithful is this: How do we continue to trust the promises of God when the evidence against those promises is all around us? Genesis 15:1-7 highlights this problem. When Abraham was seventy-five years old, he and Sarah left all the… Continue reading
Perhaps the most agonizing question in theology is how to justify a belief in a good, loving, and powerful god in a world where there is so much evil, injustice, and suffering. Continue reading
(13 minutes) Consider this remarkable fact: in the Sermon on the Mount, there is not a single word about what to believe, only words about what to do and how to be. By the time the Nicene Creed is written, only three centuries later, there is not a single word… Continue reading
Humility, uncertainty, and doubt are not found in fundamentalism. Faith is equated with unexamined belief in certain “fundamentals” which must never be questioned. Such an understanding of faith overlooks the two primary meanings of faith in the Bible: trust and fidelity to God and the way of the God we trust. Continue reading
The royal proclamation is not simply the conveying of true information about the kingship of Jesus. It is the putting into effect of that kingship, the decisive and authoritative summoning to allegiance. Paul discovered, at the heart of his missionary practice, that when he announced the lordship of Jesus Christ,… Continue reading
Faith is all about the basic trust of our lives and what we depend on for our identity and security. James says faith that is only objective belief or sentimental emotion is thoroughly counterfeit. If faith were just a matter of proper belief, then the demons who know God is One (the cardinal doctrine of Judaism and Christianity) would be on the front rows in heaven. And if faith were a matter of sentimental emotion, those with an overactive hypothalamus would be singing in the celestial choirs of the angels with big crocodile tears streaming down their faces. Genuine, 24K faith is a trust that takes concrete form in the way we live our lives. Only such faith is saving. Continue reading
I defined hope as faith on tiptoes. The image intended was a craning of the neck as people of faith rise on tiptoes looking for a better future. […]The danger of this image is that it can foster an attitude of “watching and waiting” for something to happen in which we play no part. Continue reading
Read the Scripture One of the great mysteries in the New Testament is the identity of the beloved disciple in John’s Gospel. His first appearance in the Gospel occurs in chapter 13 at the Last Supper. In Jesus’ day, Jews reclined while eating their special meals. During the Last Supper,… Continue reading
