Why did Jesus have to die the way that he did? We know why Jesus died. He died for political reasons. He was thought to be a potentially threatening freedom fighter for the Jews and the Kingdom of God. Anyone who hints at challenging Rome ended up...
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. We decided to visit a dear friend’s church in rural Haiti (Grisen-Garde, outside of Cap-Haitian). It was one of the rare Sundays that I wasn’t supposed to preach (ah, finally a respite). But before we walked into the...
Take time to watch this video in which N.T. Wright brings together the Kingdom and Cross.
It seems that the concept of covenant goes overlook in mainstream Christianity. This is problematic. When we overlook the concept of covenant in our thinking about salvation and our faith, our theology can go awry (and become quite unbiblical). It...
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain One of the greatest symptoms of sin is that it fools us into thinking that there is...
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...
One of the devotionals on my bookshelf that I frequent is A Year With C.S. Lewis. Those who know me well know that I love C.S. Lewis. I had a professor once who said, “All of my original thoughts are from C.S. Lewis.” I could have said...
(from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. Wipf & Stock, expected 2014). Another dimension of holiness that emerges when we look at it with the interpretive lens of the New Perspective is holiness as mission. This...
The Bible is a difficult book. It’s just plain hard to read and even more so, understand. Along with this, there’s some tuff stuff in the Bible. Lots of death, murder, violence, empires rising and falling, epic battles, stories of heroes and their...
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...