As already announced, I’m working on a manuscript titled Holiness in Fresh Perspective. The goal of the project is very specific: to situate the biblical doctrine of holiness within the new framework of understanding Paul’s thought and theology...
Scripture is clear on the fact that the fulfillment of God’s saving mission to the world will be manifest in the establishment of the New Creation. In that New Creation, heaven and earth are joined together (as binary and complementary parts) and...
There is a high level of irony at work in the moments of Christ’s death at Calvary. To fully understand the irony, we must grasp that it is the moment of Christ painful death on the cross that Jesus’s Messiahship comes to a head. This is the moment...
The Bible plainly teaches that there is nothing that humanity can do to save itself collectively, or individually. No one is able, in their own strength and effort, to put right that which was lost in the Garden of Eden. In fact, the very attempt to...
It seems counter-intuitive to think of the holy life as one of rest. Most often we associate spiritual discipline and long-suffering with the way of the holy life, and indeed, the holy life demands them. John Wesley once said, Vain hope! that a...
As I have been working on my Paradox manuscript and posting bits and pieces of it here, I wanted to share something I read by O. Chambers just this morning. Chambers had the gift of clarity, precision, and brevity. On this very topic, he writes...
So what are some of the pivotal paradoxes of Christian theology? The list if endless. There are a few, however, that I sense are more important for the current Church to be reminded of: 1. The Trinity: God is Three, but One 2. The Nature of Jesus:...
The more of N.T. Wright I read the more excited I become. To start, I find that his critique of Piper is spot on with specific regard to the following items: 1. Neglect of the covenant as the context for God’s saving the world. This point...
I wanted to share this with you. I read this just this morning in the Preface to N.T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision and thought it was excellent. “Second, the question is about the means of salvation...
To be a Christian is to believe in a long list of mysteries. Let me explain. When you think about it, so many of the essential doctrines of the Church are paradoxes. A paradox, by definition, is a contradiction. For many this reality is a problem...