Mark 2 is one of my favorite chapters in the New Testament. I love this chapter because Jesus does something quite radical that is rather easy to miss (interesting that we can miss something radical when we don’t have the eyes or context to see it)...
The people of Israel, while defeated and sent to exile, maintained hope for restoration. The catalyst for hope came through both the prophets (the exilic and post-exilic Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Obadiah, and...
We celebrated Pentecost last week. We are reminded during the season of Pentecost that Jesus, as he always does, fulfilled his promise to his disciples by sending the Holy Spirit. Questions remain, however, as to where we go from here. What does...
The Kingdom is now, but not yet. Jesus’ rule has been established through the Cross and resurrection. Through faith in Jesus people are able to becomes citizens of the Kingdom. At the same time, the Kingdom is not yet. Jesus has yet to pronounce...
The image of God is a crucial dimension in the meta-narrative. Any doctrine of salvation that does not take into account the image of God will end up out of whack. Readers are simply unable to grasp the essential human problem and God’s solution...
In the opening scene of the narrative, God creates the heavens and the earth. The theological thrust of both creation narratives (Genesis 1 and 2), is the sovereignty of God, as Creator. There are clues in the text that highlight this. One of the...
Not long ago I encountered a well-intentioned brother sporting a bright orange T-shirt. On the center of the shirt was a graphic borrowed from the popular board game Monopoly. The graphic was a Monopoly Chance card that said in bold font, “Get Out...
Why did Jesus die? Is there really a short and simple answer to this question? Can the most important event in human history really be summed up in one quick line? Think about the various kinds of answers we can come up with. We could give...
The Crucial Pillars of the New Perspective Going back to the original question, what is the gospel according to Paul? N. T. Wright has made a career out of answering this question. In his research, Wright has identified several crucial pillars that...
(This post is an excerpt from my working manuscript provisionally titled Holiness in Fresh Perspective or Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom: Holiness in Fresh Perspective. All rights reserved) For too long we have read Scripture with nineteenth-century...