Thom Rainer: Though I have attempted to name the stages in the past, I offer in this article the “why” behind each stage. Year 1: Honeymoon. Both pastor and church have a blank slate and they enter the relationship hoping and believing the best about each other. Perhaps the pastor was weary of his previous pastorate, and perhaps the church was happy to replace their former pastor. For a season, neither can do wrong in the other’s eyes. That season does... Read more
What have you done to sleep through the whole night? Kris is now trying tart cherry juice, something she read about and it seems to help a bit. When I awake and know “I’m not going back to sleep real soon,” my trick is to stand near a favorite green on a golf course and grab the wedge and imagine chipping onto the green. When I can’t keep my mind on the chipping I’m in trouble and will be awake... Read more
Over the last few weeks I have put up links to a couple of videos placed on YouTube by Big Think. The video of Francis Collins on science and faith has received something like 12,000 views on YouTube, the video of Tim Keller on a literal reading of scripture 15,000. In contrast the following video has received more than 770,000 views … more than three quarters of a million! Admittedly Jillette’s video has been online one year longer than Collins’... Read more
From Worldview to Theology NT Wright, in his Paul and the Faithfulness of God, volume 2, opens up with a sketch of his plan, which I will sketch briefly before we get to Wright’s own proposal: Paul’s theology is thoroughly Jewish from top to bottom, and it therefore revolved around three major themes: Monotheism: God is one and it is the God of Israel. Election: God formed a covenant with Israel by his own will, a covenant that grabbed this nation... Read more
From Halee Gray Scott, a salvo: This week, I received a third announcement about your ministry. Well, maybe not specifically your ministry, but from three different women from three different churches in three different denominations who run the women’s ministry exactly like you. The first was a notification that you designed a ministry especially for me, well, only if I happen to be a “young wife” or a “mom with younger kids”. You assured me it would all be about... Read more
An excerpt from my Sermon on the Mount [see Sidebar to your right], but just an excerpt, and this one opens up the “Live the Story” section on Matthew 5:38-42: (The issue here is kingdom living vs. “realism,” the view that one must live responsibly in this world in light of this world’s realities over against the idealisms of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. Realism has its varieties, and we begin here with Luther’s incredible comment.) Now to... Read more
First, some context for me. In writing my Sermon on the Mount I struggled with how to deal with Bonhoeffer, or with which Bonhoeffer. I wrote up a section for early in the commentary that set out how I had learned to interpret Bonhoeffer’s ethics in the unfolding of his life and thought. This is what I wrote: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Before offering a new way of framing the ethics of Jesus we need to consider the ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a... Read more
The Kingdom in NYC The Kingdom of God is like a man with millions of dollars of fine art who handed the pieces away to those who would embrace its beauty. “For his 13th day in New York, Banksy pulled a fantastic prank on unsuspecting passersby in Central Park yesterday by setting up an unannounced art stall with dozens of 100% original signed canvases. In a world where copies of unlicensed Banksy works are available for a dime a dozen, it’s not... Read more
The Company of Heaven ‘Will I be able to pray for them? After I’m gone?’ We were sitting in his battered, red F150 parked in front of the mud-brown elevation sign at the Peaks of Otter overlook on the Blue Ridge. Four-thousand feet, the sign said. We were sitting in the cab of his truck, both of us looking straight ahead, not at each other- a position I think is the only one in which men can be intimate... Read more
Almighty and everlasting God, Increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Select your answer to see how you score.
Jesus Creed
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In