This past Tuesday I came into the office fairly early in the morning. As I walked from the door toward my office, it was dark inside. No problem. It’s a wide passage, one I’m familiar with, so I don’t feel the need to walk carefully. Only on this Tuesday, some cabinets were going to be…
Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem
O Little Town of Bethlehem is one of the many Christmas carols that contain rich theology. How easy it is to sing without thinking about what we are singing! It is a danger anytime, of course, but maybe more so at Christmas. The tunes of the carols have become such a part of the Christmas…
Mark 3:20-35
There are only three possible responses to the question of who Jesus is: Either Jesus was crazy, or he was evil, or he was – and is – the son of God. Consider Eric: Eric came from a little village to the city about a year ago. He began attending various churches from week to…
What is the core of Christianity?
A few years ago, people were introduced to the 7-Minute workout, which was a series of what they called ‘high-intensity’ exercises, things like wall squats, push-ups, running in place, etc. There were ten such exercises and you were to do these exercises back-to-back for 30 seconds, with only a 10-second break in between (hence, 7-Minutes)….
The privilege of adoption
Jesus once told a story about a man who discovered a treasure in a field and sold all he had to buy the field. Ephesians 1 is a ‘treasure’ and we will do well to do whatever it takes to ‘buy’ the field, that is, to understand, apply, and enrich our relationship with God. Ephesians…
The Family Gospel (Reconciliation)
This is the final of a series of messages simply titled ‘The Gospel’. We have looked at the various pictures the Bible gives us, by which we can understand more fully the death of Jesus Christ for us. We need to do this because nothing matters more than the Gospel. Yet the Scriptures themselves do…
The Polluted Heart Gospel (Renewal)
Sin pollutes. It makes the heart dirty. It stains, not the kind of stain that ‘Shout’ or ‘Mr. Clean’ can remove. It is a bottle of black ink poured over white satin, the kind of stain about which we would say: ‘That will never come out.’ Genesis is where the story of sin begins. Adam…
The Life/Death Metaphor (Regeneration)
When we try to articulate the Gospel in a nutshell, and in such a way as to give real understanding, we find we can’t do it. Words are woefully inadequate to say: ‘This what the Gospel is…’ in a few sentences. The Bible does not even attempt it because it cannot. But a picture is…
Slavery/Freedom (Redemption)
In Mumbai, India, a young girl who had been trafficked from the north and had been missing for three years was finally tracked down by officials and by an international justice organization. They rescued her from a brothel, where she had been held captive, and she said she had not seen the sun for three…
The courtroom gospel (Justification)
Today we are beginning a short series of blogs concerning the Biblical pictures of the Gospel. We want to re-focus on the Gospel, to reacquaint ourselves with it, to be gripped by it, and to re-calibrate our lives to it again. Sometimes the ‘foyer’ of our faith needs renovating, but once in a while we…