I’m not sure what you think of apologetics, but I’ve always had this sneaking suspicion that apologetics bolsters the faith of those who already believe. I think it sometimes impacts those who don’t believe, and we’d be foolish to create false dichotomies here. In the last decade or so more and more of us are persuaded that the best, but not only, apologetic is not a rational defense that God exists or that the resurrection happened but the life of... Read more
Tom Wright says “no.” Grace, he says, does reach down to us where we are but that same grace, because of the death and resurrection of Christ, is transformative; God’s grace doesn’t accept but transform. But, he does come back agree: “God accepts us were we are, but God does not intend to leave us where we are.” (548). What do you think of this comment of his on Romans 6:15-23? Is the idea potentially dangerous to discipleship? |inline Read more
One of my high school history teachers, a certain Mr. Martin, used to announce that he went to church 50 weeks a year. He avoided the two remaining Sundays, nothing less than Christmas and Easter, for those who didn’t come on the other days to make room for them. Besides, he said, he didn’t want to worship with the uncommitted. He always drew a laugh from us about that, and my recollection is that he rarely drew laughs. |inline Read more
If I had an easy solution to the problem of zealotry, I wouldn’t need to write about it because an easy solution would create a situation were zealotry would not appear. The issues are complex, they involve human nature, and they involve the hopes of people. So, here are my suggestions, and I’m open to hear your suggestions as well. |inline Read more
I’m struck once again by Paul’s comment in Romans 6:18: “You have been set from sin and have become slaves to righteousness [justice].” We naturally think of New World Slavery when we think of the word “slave,” but in Paul’s world slavery was not of that sort (very often). Instead, Paul is using a word from the ordinary world of employment, and he’s thinking about what and to whom they have permitted themselves to be employed. |inline Read more
I gave up jogging long ago. Why? I’m so competitive I couldn’t jog for my health’s sake. I had to have a stop watch, and then a chart, and then personal records — for each day of the week, and it got to be annoying. So, though it took some arm-twisting that messed with my male ego’s thought that walking wasn’t something athletes did (and I should have realized that I stopped being an athlete when I was about 22),... Read more
Zealotry is to construct rules beyond the Bible and, in so doing, to consider oneself immune from criticism because of radical commitment. What we have learned is that such a radical commitment is actually a fearful commitment rather than a life of freedom. What are some examples? |inline Read more
“It is now technically impossible,” NT Wright says, “for the Christian to present his own or her own self to sin, since the self has died with Christ and been raised ‘ini order to live to God’.” But, Wright is quick to add, “What is possible — all too possible, alas — is for the Christian to present his or her members, the varied parts of of personality, mind, or body… to sin.” What Paul is speaking here is of... Read more
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your servants who call upon you, and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and thatwe also may have the grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.+ Read more
From a former student now involved in an emerging missional church near Seattle, who wrote me when I asked about what he was doing this summer. One theme for emerging folks is the need to transform “church” from “weekend attendance” to an ongoing lifestyle of missional work sustained and energized by community gatherings. Here’s a good example: |inline Read more
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