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.
Overview of Crucifixion of the Warrior God
Greg reviewed the content of his new book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, as a part of the Woodland Hills Church Covenant Partner gathering on March 5, 2017. If you want a fairly succinct synopsis of the thesis of his book, look no further.
Ten years ago, Greg set out to write a book justifying the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament. He quickly gave up on that endeavor and instead found a way to see how these violent portraits point to the crucified Christ in ways that you might not expect. The two-volume academic work is set to release next month, and the popular version (Cross Vision) will be coming out in August.
Related Reading
Why Did Jesus Curse a Barren Fig Tree?
While no one argues that the NT advocates violence explicitly, many allege that some passages reflect violent attitudes toward outsiders, and especially toward non-believing Jews, while others detect an element of violence in some of Jesus’ teachings and behavior. Some scholars argue that this violent aspect of the NT laid the groundwork for later Christian…
God’s Dream for the World
The future doesn’t yet exist—which is why it’s future instead of the present or past—this doesn’t mean I’m claiming the future is wide open. To the contrary, it’s very clear from Scripture that God has a great plan for the future, and this plan steers the course of history by setting limits on what can…
The Violent “Church Triumphant”
In light of how central enemy-loving non-violence is to Jesus’ teaching and to his cross-centered revelation of God, we have to wonder why the church has refused to listen to its head and instead condoned violence, as pointed out in the previous post? Christian theologians have used OT’s violent portraits of God, at least since…
The Longing of Advent
The Advent season is a time of anticipating the coming of God, in Christ, a time of turning our imagination toward the revelation of God’s love for us. This after all is the deepest longing of our heart, and our natural longings always point us to something real. We grow hungry only because there’s such…
Approaches to Reading the Bible
As early as the 17th century, certain Bible scholars began to apply the scientific model of knowledge that evolved during the Scientific Revolution to the study of Scripture. This new “scientific” approach is broadly referred to as “the historical-critical method,” one that proponents claimed to be “objective.” It is rooted in the assumption that the…
How The Imperfections of Scripture Reveal God Perfectly
In my previous blog I discussed one important implication of a cruciform (“cross-centered”) approach to biblical inspiration. On the cross, I noted, God revealed his perfection by identifying with human imperfection. Jesus in some sense became our sin and our curse. In this light, I argued, why should anyone find it surprising, let alone disturbing,…