I’m a huge advocate of corporate worship and communal Christianity. My personal MO is shaped by the fact that salvation is for a people through a people. I make it a habit of pointing out that too often in contemporary mainstream Christianity we...
What does it mean to be “saved” according to the Bible? This is a tricky question for a number of reasons. To start, the Bible is a complex book. It has countless characters, historical contexts, and theological motifs. After all, full...
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” — 2 Peter 3:9 Three things strike me about this verse. First, that “the Lord...
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the...
The genealogy of Jesus has always been intriguing to me. What an unusual way to start the final, and most climatic part of the great story of God’s salvation plan for the creation—a list of names. So what’s the importance of the genealogy of Jesus...
A quick blurb from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf and Stock, expected 2014). When we lose the complex backdrop of God’s World Renewal Plan when reading the New Testament and interpreting God’s salvation into our...
This is a short excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. Wipf and Stock, 2014. All rights reserved. Consider Romans 1:1–4 for a moment. This is Paul’s salutation to the churches in Rome. In this salutation, Paul does...
The book of Genesis is a book of origins. In fact, the titled itself, “Genesis” is the Greek word meaning “origins”. The Hebrew title of the book of Genesis is “bereshith” (ברשית) which means “in the beginning” (although there’s still quite a bit of...
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...
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...