“Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:22–23) No one likes a loser. An eccentric religious scholar who may or may not be a political revolutionary and has managed either to anger or alienate a fair amount of both […]
“Christians exist in an alternative chronology. The church has its own time.” — Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary Once upon a time, the Christian community did not orient its life around the seasonal calendar of winter, spring, summer, and fall. Of course, daily labors were rightly organized around the planting and harvest times, but […]
Late last year, Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser signed into law the Death with Dignity Act of 2016. It permits D.C. residents who suffer from a terminal disease with a life expectancy of less than six months (and who do not have a psychiatric diagnosis of depression) to request and receive a prescription of lethal […]
Joseph was told by an angel to name his son Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). In times past in Egypt, the Passover lamb had borne people’s sins, but now Jesus came into the world to become the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world […]
Ask any Sunday school scholar why Jesus died on the cross, and you’re likely to get the same answer: “For our sins!” There’s no question that penal substitution and propitiation get a lot of air time in confessional Protestant circles. If there’s one thing the reformational church is known for, it’s a keen awareness of […]
Consider the cross of Jesus Christ—that rough-hewn beam of torture and sacrifice, at once both curse and horror and wonderful instrument of redemption and salvation for sinners (Isa. 53:5–6; Eph. 2:13–16; Col. 1:19–20). John Calvin, the Genevan Reformer, was a man well acquainted with the cross. In his childhood, he was regularly taken by his […]
“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of […]
Like many white upper-middle-class mainline Protestants, I’ve long taken issue with the concept of divine wrath, believing it to conflict with the God whose most determinative attribute is goodness itself. Whenever I’ve pondered the possibility of God’s anger, I’ve invariably thought about it directed at me—I’m no saint, sure, but I’m no great sinner either. […]
Hard on the heels of Larry Hurtado’s outstanding Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World comes acclaimed apologist Michael Licona’s most significant publication to date, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? This singularly important book offers a powerful apologetic to New Testament skeptics, as well as a needed corrective to […]
For at least a decade, some of us have been chanting like Christopher Walken in the infamous Saturday Night Live skit, “More cowbell! More cowbell!” Except we have been begging for “More Bucer! More Bucer!” Particularly, the reading audience needed access to his 1524 Grund und Ursach, one of the more important early treatises in […]
As a pastor of a church plant in the Minneapolis metro area, I have found the books in the 9 Marks: Building Healthy Churches series to be helpful in teaching congregations why it is important to “grow in loving the church.” The books in this series are faithful to Scripture, solid in doctrine, readable and […]
The Bible is a text of unparalleled power—its narrative line is breathtaking, its scope vast. Much of it is drama, and even those sections that are not (e.g., the lengthy poems and letters) were originally intended to be read at a single sitting. So why do many of us stop after a page or two? […]
At the heart of the Christian story are the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. The significance of Christ’s atonement for sins (the very basis of his name and his mission) is what makes Christianity truly Christian: a religion with Christ at its redemptive center. The way that evangelical Christians have spoken […]
For the last several months, members of my church have invited our neighbors to a monthly community meal we host. It has been a great opportunity to get to know people in our neighborhood, but recently a few people were met with a question that seemed right out of a 1970s romantic comedy: “What’s your […]
