Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more
A theologian friend of mine sent me this: Why study Thomas Aquinas? By almost everyone’s admission Aquinas was the most important philosopher for almost 2,000 years between Aristotle and Descartes. But Peter Kreeft of Boston College has another answer: ‘My personal answer is that I believe Aquinas was simply the wisest and most intelligent philosopher in history. And I want to show you why.’ In 14 CD’s just released (2009), Peter Kreeft introduces listeners to the philosophy and theology of... Read more
Merry Christmas in Chicago KSZ interviews RM-S about mD at OtM. Life of a church planter: Todd Hiestand. Life of a pastor: Jim Martin. Life of a poet: L.L. Barkat. Ted on Tony. LaVonne on wish lists. TSK on Shannon Hopkins. Dan Kimball on “organized religion.” Is organized religion unavoidable? Richard Mouw on formation. The future is the new: Ben Arment. The past is now: Mike Bird. The future begins now: Eugene Cho. The past is changing into a new... Read more
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Flesh and Glory — an odd combination — but that is what Christmas is. Christmas is the Impossible, the joining into perfect oneness — in one Person, the Word who is Life and Light — the Glory and the Flesh. God’s glory tabernacled in the original... Read more
I have been paying some attention to the bumper sticker, sound-byte that says “Pray for Obama” with a Bible verse attached: Psalm 109:8. It’s a long Psalm, and most who read this on the back of someone’s car won’t know what Psalm 109 means, and many will think the person is simply a Christian who wants to have others pray for our President. But, a look at that Psalm creates a brooding if not depressing mood of something at work... Read more
After his opening sketch, Gary Anderson, in Sin: A History , examines the old biblical image of sin as a burden that needs to be lifted. The most common image is sin (awon) as burden that needs to be lifted (108x), followed by sin as something to be forgiven (17x) and sin as something to be wiped away (6x). But most Bible translations blend these all into “forgive”; Anderson’s contention is that they are missing an important metaphor: sin is predominantly a... Read more
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The Word who is Life, the Word who is Light, has become “flesh.” The Christmas message, embodied in one word, is that the Word becomes Flesh. Real, breathing, skin-covered humanity as the Act of Redemption begins to unroll before our eyes. One word: Incarnation. God becomes human and, to quote Eugene Peterson, “moves into the neighborhood.” God becomes what we are — humans — so that we might... Read more
We began a couple of weeks ago to look at Kevin Corcoran’s book Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul where he develops a constitution view of human persons. Professor Corcoran is a philosopher teaching at Calvin College specializing in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion – a philosopher who tries to connect philosophy with bible, theology, faith, and science. If “nothing-but” materialism is inadequate, but dualism also seems troubling, where can we turn? Today... Read more
Our intent is to converse about John Goldingay’s newest OT theology volume (Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Life ) biweekly or at least monthly. Goldingay is quotable, and I love this opening claim: “In understanding what it means to be human, whereas the modern world starts with the autonomous individual, and the postmodern world (at least in theory) starts with the community, the premodern world could be reckoned to start with God” (16). In fact, the order of the First Testament... Read more
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