(This is from Elie Wiesel’s book “God’s Messengers”) When the battle was over, the angel pleaded with Jacob to let him go; Jacob refused to leave without a blessing. Angel – I cannot. I do not have time. Dawn is breaking and I must leave. Jacob – You are afraid of dawn? Why? Are […] Continue reading
I don’t know what to say. Do you? What I refuse to say in the wake of tragedy. (1) I will not try to run to God’s defense. He is a big boy, he can defend himself, or not. (2) I will not blame God. Looks more like evil than God to me. Who am […] Continue reading
Last night we got into the text of Ephesians 1. If I were stranded on a desert island, and I could only have one chapter of scripture with me, it might be Ephesians 1. I love that chapter. And I can’t really explain why, at least not fully. Something about Ephesians 1 totally captivates my […] Continue reading
The resurrection of Jesus establishes the conditions in which we live and mature in the Christian life and carry on this conversation: Jesus alive and present. A lively sense of Jesus’ resurrection, which took place without any help or comment from us, keeps us from attempting to take charge of our own development and growth. […] Continue reading
The war is at an end – even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum […] Continue reading
* Thanks to Jonathan Storment for teaching me about John Darby. There was a guy named John Darby, a British (Anglo-Irish to be exact, since we are talking about history now) evangelist in the 1800’s. He did something amazing, and, in my opinion awful. He invented the Rapture. It never ceases to amaze me how […] Continue reading
* I highly recommend reading John Walton’s book “The Lost World of Genesis One” When God created the heavens and the earth, he had made for himself a dwelling place. This is obvious from within the basic story of Genesis 1 & 2 itself, and becomes even more obvious after a basic exegesis of that […] Continue reading
This is my simplest, strongest and most logical case for bodily resurrection. Which makes this my simplest, strongest and most logical defense of orthodoxy against American Gnosticism. There are a million biblical arguments I could make. There are a million theological arguments I could make. This one is just logical. When Jesus Christ came out […] Continue reading
In this week’s Ethos class we talked about the meanings of the cross. The question hasn’t often been posed in Christian education, “What does the Cross of Jesus, the Messiah, mean?” or, “Why did Jesus have to die?” But it is an incredibly important question to raise! Otherwise, we simply assume we know the reasons […] Continue reading
I am getting ready for my sermon next week on “The Cross” and I have been thinking a lot about weakness. We are currently at the climax of The Story: A 31-week journey through the grand narrative of scripture, from Creation to New Creation. And now, I have been assigned week 26: The Hour of […] Continue reading
