We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
The Only Starting Point
![a celebrity [water] drop](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2555/4212675120_414aca9094.jpg "a celebrity [water] drop")
Our friend Roger Olson wrote a great article on placing Jesus first when constructing a statement of faith. It might seem like a small thing, but it deeply matters what we place as primary in matters of faith. Let’s always begin with Jesus.
From Roger’s blog post:
What are we first and foremost—God-people, Bible-people, or Jesus-people?
Of course, someone will say “All of the above.” True enough. But when we say we are “God-people” or “Bible-people,” what do we mean? These are more vague and potentially misleading than “Jesus-people” which, although of course subject to misunderstanding, is clearer.
I believe our primary focus of faith as Christians, that which conditions all else, is Jesus. If he is God incarnate, as all orthodox Christians believe (or at least say they believe), or even the “human face of God,” as liberal Christians believe (or at least say they believe), then we cannot begin with a generic or even pre-Jesus “God,” what theologian Robert Jenson calls “unbaptized God,” and project that onto Jesus.
Category: General
Tags: Faith, Jesus, Roger Olson
Related Reading
According to Your Faith
In his sermon from this last weekend, Greg deals with Scriptures that have created some misunderstandings regarding the nature of faith. He shows how we can replace the gimmickry we normally associate with faith with something much more beautiful and lasting. You can download the sermon here. How have Greg’s thoughts on faith impacted the…
What Are the “Keys to the Kingdom”?
And I tell you that you are Peter [petros = rock], and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on…
Defining Love
If God’s eternal essence is love, as discussed in this post, then we must ask: What does this confession actually mean? We must explore this question carefully because “love” has been defined in many theological streams in ways that seem contradictory to the kind of love revealed by Christ. As with so many other things,…
Penal Substitution View of Atonement: Did God the Father Just Need to Vent?
In this video blog, Greg outlines the penal substitution view of atonement which says that the Father poured out his wrath on Jesus instead of us so that we could be forgiven. This view is very common and you might even be nodding your head in agreement with that description. However, this view creates some…
The Incarnation: Paradox or Contradiction?
We’re in the process of flushing out the theology of the ReKnew Manifesto, and we’ve come to the point where we should address the Incarnation. This is the classical Christian doctrine that Jesus was fully God and fully human. Today I’ll simply argue for the logical coherence of this doctrine, viz. it does not involve…
A Dialogue with Derek Flood Part 2: Is ALL of the Bible Inspired?
Image by TheRevSteve via Flickr Yesterday, I offered the first part of my response to Flood’s comments regarding my review of his book. Today I’ll finish up my thoughts. Scripture and Its Interpretation Flood confesses that he is confused as to how I can claim that “in the light of Christ, we must reject violent interpretations of Scripture”…