My friend (and not just on Facebook!) John Armstrong has posted a couple of thoughts about “the home church movement”, the first listing some of its draw and the second outlining some of his concerns. Since I attend a house church, I thought I’d weigh in on his thoughts with some of my own thrown [...]
As I’ve caught various whiffs of Glenn Beck’s calls to America to turn back to God, I’ve simultaneously felt the biblical currents that enliven such a dream. Thought it is sometimes hard to see, and requires a little bit of reconstruction, Beck’s vision of a Christian nation is a thoroughly biblical idea. We catch sight [...]
Yesterday’s post on the pragmatic nature of love in the Kingdom of God raised some good questions, and provoked a couple further thoughts for yours truly. (Incidentally, this is one reason I blog: not because I have something to say all the time, but because often if I just say something there will be a [...]
In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post on homosexuality and justice, I had a few thoughts on the pragmatic nature of my argument about endorsing civil liberties as an expression of love. To be sure, there was a bit of a theological component as well, an appeal to Jesus’ commands to love our neighbor, [...]
If I had to pick one passage of scripture that encapsulated the entirety of the Christian message, I might very well pick Mark 10:32-45. I return to this passage repeatedly in my classes and in my reflections on what it means to live faithfully as a Christian, because here the story unfolds to show us [...]
First John is replete with confident claims. Claims that those who really are part of the people of God won’t sin. Claims that those who do sin aren’t part. Claims that those who are part of the people will agree with what the author and community say. Claims that those who don’t listen aren’t truly [...]
In yesterday’s post I made reference to a thousand years without doctrinal statements. What I was referring to was the ways that Jewish theological reflection is demonstrated to us in the Old Testament and the ways that it is shown to us in the New. For all the things that we can and cannot say [...]
I confess: it takes a lot sometimes for me to see what Luke’s up to in the way he strings together the Jesus stories. But today I’ve been pondering a possible thread through three pericopes: Jesus’ passion prediction, the disciples subsequent arguing over greatness, and their confession about stopping a guy from exorcising (all in [...]
Ok, so last Wednesday I went all grumpy on the idea of Lent, suggesting that it might be getting the Christian story wrong. The back-story on that one is that I have wrestled on and off with the power of rediscovery of church tradition to be a divisive force in the church. The same dynamic [...]
I’m spending a little time in the “fruit of the Spirit” this morning, that great list of Christian virtues Paul lays out in Galatians 5: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” I love that self-control is part of the fruit of the Spirit, but that’s another thought for another day. What [...]
