This past weekend I preached a sermon at my church Christ Community Church. The sermon was the final in a series on the locations of the Christmas story. I give credit to Jim Nicodem, my pastor, for a creative take on the Nativity Story. By the way, Jim has his own blog, called Bible Savvy, where he helps believers draw practical meaning for life from the Bible. It is a great resource for people who find it difficult to read the... Read more

It is a foregone conclusion among many scholars, and certainly the wider public, that by the late 30’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer had changed his view on violence. While earlier in the 30’s he had articulated a perspective on violence that could be characterized as pacifism rooted in his interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount captured clearly in Discipleship, the realities of Nazi German had caused him to see the necessity of violence in the face of such evil. This interpretation... Read more

Over the course of the last six months I’ve been seeing a therapist. Besides trusting Jesus with my life, marrying Karla and a few other biggies, going to therapy has been one of the best decisions of my life. After my first session, I texted a friend “I love therapy! It’s safe, freeing, affirming, enlightening, redeeming . . . I guess I really needed it – I should’ve gone sooner!”I believe the work of a Christian therapist is what Dietrich... Read more

Over at Eerdword is a post by Tony Burke about his new book Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha, and it includes these colorful comments: I have seen in my students that their individual reactions to these texts are much like their reactions to biblical scholarship in general. Students from conservative Christian backgrounds, where the authorship of the gospels or the historical veracity of traditions about Jesus are never questioned, tend to feel cheated, misled, and manipulated... Read more

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Glenn Davies, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, gives his first Christmas message. Read more

God had looked upon the poor of the world and had himself come to help. Now he was there, not as the Almighty One, but in the seclusion of humanity. Wherever there are sinners, the weak, the sorrowful, the poor in the world, that is where God goes. Here he lets himself be found by everyone. And this message goes throughout the world, year after year anew. And it also comes once again to us this year . . .... Read more

The story of Jesus’ birth emphasizes that God’s deliverance comes upon the world in a very specific way, it means that God’s salvation comes to and through Israel … and it is God himself who comes. Or, as I say in EvTh: The virgin conception means that Jesus was not simply a holy man whom God honored with divine status. It means Jesus was not a cosmic ghost disguised as a man dispensing philosophically savvy self-help advice to be true... Read more

The song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55) is the oldest Advent hymn. It is the most passionate, most vehement, one might say, most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. It is not the gentle, sweet, dreamy Mary that we so often see portrayed in pictures, but the passionate, powerful, proud, enthusiastic Mary, who speaks here. None of the sweet, sugary, or childish tones that we find so often in our Christmas hymns, but a hard, strong, uncompromising song of bringing down rulers... Read more

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Sprit, one God, now and for ever. Read more