God’s Story in Romans – KR 108 Stories have power. Rev. Amanda Holm Rosengren shows how Paul captures and leverages God’s story to form the community of God’s people in Rome. This community and their story have deep roots in the story of what God has been doing through his people since the beginning of time. Listen to Everything You Need to Know About the New Perspective in 30 Minutes here >> https://soundcloud.com/user-212639123/11-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-perspective-in-30-minutes Follow along with Church of the Redeemer’s… Read more

Two Step Miracles, by Mike Glenn As Christ followers, we find ourselves uncomfortable, even a little embarrassed, by the story of Jesus’ healing of the blind man in Mark 8. You remember the story. A blind man is brought to Jesus, and Jesus pulls him aside. Then, Jesus spits on the man’s eyes (see what I mean?) and rubs the spittle into the eyes of the blind man. When Jesus asked him if he can see, the man says, yes,… Read more

I believe in the Holy Spirit Working through the Apostles’ Creed, the next topic is a one-liner, or perhaps a two-liner if we consider the reference to the Holy Spirit in the incarnation (Jesus was “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit”). Yet the Holy Spirit is an important part of Christian belief – traditionally represented as a dove as in the image of the baptism of Jesus shown to the right (image credit). Although the understanding of the… Read more

In our series on the patristic writings, we return to 2 Clement 10-11. Our series uses for its text Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers. This series began because of the challenge given by Kenneth Stewart’s wonderful book, In Search of Ancient Roots. We need to read the patristics, and that is what I’m doing with you on this blog — inch by inch! What’s 2 Clement about? It’s an exhortation to faithfulness to the way of Christ in the face of… Read more

Luke Timothy Johnson, in Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation, contends miracles in an age of secularity present enormous challenges that can only be countered with a concerted counter-challenge. I agree. The challenge facing contemporary Christians in the matter of miracles is daunting. The condition of double-mindedness is pervasive and entrenched. Christians wishing to profess the central tenets of the faith—the convictions by which they live and for which, often enough, they die—cannot avoid mythic language. Incarnation and resurrection alike… Read more

What about those trumpets of terror that unfold in Revelation 8-11?  For our posts on Revelation we are reading Craig Koester Revelation and the End of All Things and Ian Paul, Revelation. I have reformatted Koester’s wonderful summary into separable points: First, Context: Seven trumpets are blown in succession, creating the third cycle of visions in Revelation. At the conclusion of the previous cycle, a graceful silence lingered in heavens chambers after the voices in the celestial chorus had sounded the… Read more

I always read John Hawthorne’s posts, this one about the CT article and its graphics: This week Christianity Today reported on research sponsored by the Billy Graham Center and conducted by LifeWay Research. Titled “Why Evangelicals Voted Trump: Debunking the 81%,” it reported on data from 3,000 respondents.  These respondents were analyzed in three groups: evangelicals by belief (EBB), self-identified evangelicals (SIE), and non-evangelicals. … One thing that stands out immediately is that 77% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. While it’s true… Read more

By Emily McFarlan Miller: (RNS) — Eugene Peterson, the bestselling author of “The Message” and longtime pastor praised as a “shepherd’s shepherd,” passed away Monday morning (Oct. 22) at age 85. Among Peterson’s last words were, “Let’s go,” according to a statement from his family. “During the previous days, it was apparent that he was navigating the thin and sacred space between earth and heaven,” according to his family. “We overheard him speaking to people we can only presume were welcoming him into paradise…. Read more

I love the series from Princeton called Lives of Great Religious Books. So far I have enjoyed the following: Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer Ronald Hendel, The Book of Genesis Bruce Gordon, John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” But this new one is beyond tempting to drop everything to read: Timothy Beal, The Book of Revelation Beal’s teenage world was mine: I had tried and failed to read the actual text of the biblical book of Revelation…. Read more