Category: Discipleship
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A Pauline Call for a Christian Meat Taboo
Read more: A Pauline Call for a Christian Meat TabooJohn M.G. Barclay, ‘Food, Christian Identity and Global Warming: A Pauline Call for a Christian Food Taboo’, The Expository Times 121 (2010): 585-93. Over the past couple years I have repeatedly returned to the article listed above. Not because I forget about the main point, but because I find it incredibly compelling. I just keep…
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Our Evil God
Read more: Our Evil GodEvil things happen in this world, and yet God is still somehow sovereign. This is perhaps the hardest part of Christian theology to accept and understand. How is God sovereign over the persecution of Christians around the world, over the acts of ISIS, over world hunger and poverty, or over smaller evils like my own depression,…
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Becoming friends with God and Abraham
Read more: Becoming friends with God and AbrahamWhy is Abraham called a friend of God? Here are some ideas: Isaiah says it, and James says that “doing good” has something to do with it. (Isa. 41:8; Jas. 2:23) Augustine describes friendship as a “sharing of the counsels of the heart.” (Edward C. Sellner Like a Kindling Fire: Meanings of Friendship in the Life and…
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The Deadly Implications of Reading Scripture
Read more: The Deadly Implications of Reading ScriptureReading scripture has deadly implications. “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before…
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Do You Know Why You Go To Church?
Read more: Do You Know Why You Go To Church?What is the local church? Not physically so much, but what is the point? I asked this question for years ever since I started going consistently of my own volition in my senior year of high-school. I really only went because I had friends there, and occasionally I’d hear an interesting point about some passage…
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The Divisiveness of Jesus
Read more: The Divisiveness of Jesus“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” In our world and in our current political climate,…
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God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Our Faithless Felonies
Read more: God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Our Faithless Felonies1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. What’s one defining characteristic the whole world has in common? We seem to have a rather unhealthy appetite for sinning in many awful, albeit often creative, ways. Maybe it was lying to…
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So you’re smart. Are you brilliant?
Read more: So you’re smart. Are you brilliant?“Jack, you’ve got a really sharp mind.” My boss at the Denver Institute for Faith and Work loves our rapid-fire, intricate theological conversations.; they’re so fun. I smiled as I remembered quoting Von Balthasar and Lewis over Costco food court turkey sandwiches to critique modern epistemologies. But that compliment this morning had been preceded with by…
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Sweaty Prayer
Read more: Sweaty PrayerSometimes, I really think I have narcolepsy. Sure, sometimes we joke that we must be the helpless victim to this disorder after our friends elbow you for hanging your head for a few minutes during the Sunday Message, or for closing your eyes during a lecture or a movie. But, when rolled down windows, loud…
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Hospitality in Redemptive History
Read more: Hospitality in Redemptive History“I don’t know,” said Gavin, feet on the dash, brow furrowed in thought, “college students just aren’t that hospitable.” Driving away from a youth theater performance of Singin’ in the Rain, we exchanged reflections on home-finding, transience, and living on a micro-budget. While hospitality may slip by the wayside, students do a lot of other…