What do you think? Texting while driving is dangerous; some States have “illegalized” texting while driving. But do you support the new applications for cell phones that shut down the phone’s capacity to “text” while driving (shutting the phone down when moving over 5 mph)? Or do you think we should entrust this to the citizens and ask the citizens to cease texting while driving? Is the best alternative a bluetooth device? Now the big one: What do you actually... Read more
Paul’s in trouble in the heart of the heart of God’s place: in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem believers (in Jesus) question, or at least wonder about, Paul’s Torah observance and his commitment to the sanctity of the Temple. In fact, mob rule takes over and Paul is beaten until a Roman soldier appears. He wonders who Paul is, and Paul responds in what can only be seen as a missional speech. Why say this? Because to be missional... Read more
How do you define “narrative preaching”? And, alongside that question, another one: How much story do you think appropriate in a sermon? What did you learn in seminary about the appropriateness or frequency of stories in sermons? Tom Long, whom I heard three or four times last Fall when I was at a conference at David Lipscomb University in Nashville, is one of the best preachers I have ever heard. Now to reveal my ignorance: I had never heard of... Read more
I read this piece by James-Michael Smith the other day, and I thought it was so good I lifted a couple paragraphs and would love to have a discussion here: What do you think of “manly” and “fighting” images for Jesus? (The italicized was the context and the author’s own article begins when it turns to regular font.) The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in... Read more
No passage in the New Testament ever describes the groups it assumes everyone knows. Yet, we beg for those descriptions and so scholars over the years have sketched and re-sketched, and then discarded and reconstructed what can be known about those groups. The most recent, and thoroughly readable — and every church library needs this book and I would say pastors need it and students need to know about it to save them a million errors of caricature — book... Read more
What will happen to Social Security? Jack Cafferty, the most lovable curmudgeon I follow, got it going on this topic the other day at CNN.com. Here’s a bit and I wonder what you think: First it was the banks and car companies… and now it looks like Social Security is the next in line for a taxpayer bailout. Fortune Magazine’s Allan Sloan writes that for the first time in 25 years – Social Security is taking in less than it’s... Read more
This series is for those who celebrate weekly and it is also for those who want to ponder weekly the great mysteries of the redemption we give thanks for, we memorialize, and we bless. To aid in this series, I will be looking at Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer’s new book, The Mystery of Faith: Meditations on the Eucharist . He’s a recently deceased Polish Catholic priest whose books have sold in to the hundreds of thousands worldwide. I will not always... Read more
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more
Michael Kruse is well-known to the Jesus Creed blog, and here he plies his trade once again in a book review. A variety of anthropological lenses have been used to examine the New Testament world but one lens remains relatively neglected … an economic lens. Scholars like Bruce Malina, K. C. Hanson, Douglas Oakman, and Justo Gonzalez are but a few that I’ve read that are trying to understand the economic world of the New Testament from the inside out.... Read more
North Park University Read more
Jesus Creed
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In