Posts
Did Jesus Say That God Causes Blindness?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Blueprint Worldview, God at War, Sickness, Spiritual Warfare, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: The Problem of Evil
Verse: John 9
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this…
Lighten Up: Every Kind of Drummer
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Drummer, Greg Boyd, Humor
After years of watching Greg drum, I think he falls most neatly into “The Showoff” category. Thanks for sending this to us Jason Tripp!
When to Do Spiritual Warfare
Category: General
Tags: Demonization, Demons, Mental Illness, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
If the world is engulfed in spiritual warfare, how do we know when we’re confronting a demon that requires deliverance prayer, or simply confronting a “natural” by-product of the fallen world that requires medical or…
Are you Afraid of Demons?
Category: General
Tags: Demonization, Demons, Fear, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
I remember learning about germs in fourth grade. We were told our world was saturated with tiny invisible creatures that can infect wounds and make us sick. I immediately stopped sharing already-chewed gum with other…
The Demonic Affects Us All!
Category: General
Tags: Christian, Satan, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Many contemporary Western Christians think we only engage in spiritual warfare when we encounter somebody who is exhibiting bizarre, demonically-inspired behavior, such as the demonized people Jesus confronted in the Gospels. Since most Western Christians…
Can Christians be Demon Possessed?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Christian Life, Demonization, Demons, Possession
Topics: Sin
The Greek word that is usually translated “demon-possessed” in the Gospels is demonizomai, which literally means “to be rendered passive toward a demon.” It’s unfortunate, in my view, that the term is usually translated “demon possession.”…
Lighten Up: Listening for the Voice of the Father
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Love, Love of God
Christian comedian Michael Jr. posted this video last week for Father’s Day. What it says about love and connection and God in just a few minutes is so lovely. Enjoy.
Are the Charismatic Gifts for Today’s Church?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Gifts, The Holy Spirit
Topics: The Church
This week, we have offered a brief series on the Holy Spirit touching on what the Spirit does, how it changes us, and how the fruit of the Spirit is produced. Now we will look briefly at the gifts…
How to Produce the Fruit of the Spirit
Category: General
Tags: Fruit of the Spirit, Imaginative Prayer, Jesus, Peace, Prayer, Seeing is Believing, The Holy Spirit, Transformation
When the New Testament tells us to be loving, joyful, peaceful, kind and so on, it is not giving us a new set of behaviors that we are to strive to accomplish. Striving to attain…
How the Holy Spirit Changes Us
Category: General
Tags: Imagination, Imaginative Prayer, Seeing is Believing, The Holy Spirit
The Bible is full of stories of people who experienced the presence of God. If we are to experience something similar today, we must, through the Spirit, cultivate the spiritual capacity of an inner life…
What Does the Holy Spirit Do?
Category: General
Tags: The Holy Spirit, Trinity, Truth
The true God breaks into our deception-filled world to reveal himself to us in the person of his Son. In and of itself, however, this doesn’t lift the deception of the flesh from our hearts…
Today We Can’t Lighten Up
Category: General
Tags: Racism, Violence
We usually post something light-hearted or funny on Fridays. Not today. Not in the aftermath of the massacre in Charleston. Instead, we wanted to share with you the words of our friend Osheta Moore. You can…
How To Fix The Church: The Kingdom of God (Part 4)
Category: General
Tags: Church, Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living
Topics: Following Jesus
God has leveraged everything on the Church loving like Jesus loved, as outlined in our previous posts in this series. “By this the world will know you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “by your love”…
The Only Thing That Matters Is Love: The Kingdom of God (Part 3)
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living, Living in Love, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
To say that living in Calvary-quality love is the most important thing in our life is to grossly understate its importance. This stands in distinction from how we typically define the Kingdom of God. But…
The Kingdom of God (Part 2)
Category: General
Tags: Action, Enemy Love, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Following Jesus
The Church is called to be nothing less than “the body of Christ,” a sort of corporate extension of Jesus’ incarnate body. We are called to replicate who Jesus was by manifesting who Jesus is….
What is the Kingdom of God (Part 1)
Category: General
Tags: Holiness, Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living, National Idolatry, Upside-Down Kingdom, War
Topics: Following Jesus
We all know what the Kingdom of God is, right? But this is precisely the problem. Since we are all to a large extent products of our culture, what seems obviously true and right to…
Lighten Up: Earth Reboot
Category: Lighten Up
It’s a good thing God is so patient and never gives up. But we really should take better care of this place. Cartoon by Shannon Wheeler
The Purpose of the Church
Category: General
Tags: Church, Kingdom Living, Spiritual Warfare
Concerning the preaching of the Gospel, Paul wrote that God’s intent was that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in…
The Grand Illusion
Category: General
Tags: Being Present, Practicing the Presence of God, Present Perfect
As long as we buy the lie that Life can be found outside of a moment-by-moment relationship with God, we will determine that our problem is that we simply don’t have enough. If only we…
Rethinking Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Philosophy, Transcendence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Going back to pre-Socratic philosophers and running through the major strands of the church’s theological tradition, the conception of how God (or, in ancient Greece, “the One”) was arrived at primarily by negating the contingent…