Posts
On This Good Friday…
Category: General
Tags: Good Friday
Image by Renaud Camus via Flickr …may you know the love of the one who gave his life for you.
Past Sermon Series: Faith & Doubt
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Bible, Doubt, Faith, Greg Boyd, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
Faith is sometimes understood as the lack of doubt. As a result, doubt can be seen as the enemy of faith. But Biblical faith can withstand doubt and even be strengthened by it. God wants His…
Performance Christianity—Getting Over It
Category: General
Tags: Experiencing Jesus, Identity in Christ, Imaginative Prayer, Picture of God, Seeing is Believing
Image by Martijn Braat via Flickr Many Christians feel empty, tired, and apathetic, if not positively angry, though few express this out loud because it’s usually taboo to do so within Christian circles. These believers often fault…
Is Islam Inherently Violent?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Christianity, Islam, Religion, Religious Violence, Violence
An increasing number of people, especially in conservative Christian circles, are claiming that Islam is an inherently violent religion. They point to all the violence in the history of Islam and all of the violence…
Sermon Clip: Hijabs At The Gym
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Greg Boyd, Peacemaking, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
In the last message of Mixed Signals, we take a look at Islam and how Kingdom people should be responding to the growing worldwide Islamic movement. We explore the growing disparity between the life Jesus…
9 Things That Are True of Us When We’re Saved
Category: General
Tags: Gifts, Identity in Christ, Jesus, New Humanity, Salvation
Topics: Following Jesus
Image by rAmmoRRison via Flickr The New Testament has many amazing things to say about who we are as believers because of what Christ has done for us. When the Lord saves us, he doesn’t just…
Goodbye Beloved “Friend at First Sight”
Category: General
Tags: Death, Europe, Friends, Gaby Hitipeuw, Love
I don’t believe in “love at first sight,” but I do believe that once in a great while, some fortunate people encounter “friends at first sight.” Maybe you know what I’m talking about. There are…
Sermon Clip: You Are Not The Tree
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Bible, Greg Boyd, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
What do the Gospels, Christmas Trees, and Eastern Spirituality have to do with one another? Greg Boyd explains in this weeks sermon clip. In the full sermon, we explore the Gnostics belief of the church…
Are the Gospels Historical Fiction?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Biblical Criticism, Gospels, Jesus, Lord or Legend?
Topics: Biblical Reliability, Jesus: Lord or Legend
Some scholars today argue that the stories recorded in the Gospels are actually intentional fabrication. In essence, they argue that Mark took Paul’s theology and robed the story of Jesus in a fictitious historical narrative….
Spiritual Warfare: What is it?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Humility, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Love, Myth of a Christian Religion, Satan, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The Kingdom is “not of this world,” and neither is its warfare. Jews had always believed that God confronted spiritual opposition in carrying out his will on earth. In the Old Testament, these evil forces…
Love OR Judgment – You Can’t Have Both
Category: General
Tags: Judgment, Living in Love, Love, Repenting of Religion
Topics: Following Jesus
Image by Morgan Sessions We cannot judge others because it is not our place as humans to function as the center—because God is that center—and judge other people. In addition, we cannot judge others because we…
Lighten Up: Other People’s Sins
Category: General, Lighten Up
Tags: Judgment, Lighten Up, Sin
Cartoon via Adventures of the Holy Ghost Thanks for the heads up @andrewhaak!
Repent! … From the Sin of Religion
Category: General
Tags: Judgment, Living in Love, Love, Religion, Religious Idolatry, Repenting of Religion, Servant
Topics: Following Jesus
People often think that being Christian is about “being religious,” but loving others in the way that Christ instructs us is about as far removed from religion as anything could be. Religion, as I use…
“Natural” Evil? 7 Arguments Implicating Satan
Category: General
Tags: Creation, God at War, Natural Evil, Problem of Evil, Satan, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Creation Care, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Image by Jmos® via Flickr We believe that God is the Creator of nature, but nature simply does not seem to point to a God of love. Parasites, viruses, bacteria, diseases and cancer kill millions and torment…
Christians and Creation Care
Category: General
Tags: Animals, Creation, Kingdom Living, Myth of a Christian Religion
Topics: Creation Care
Image by Ali Inay While the mustard seed of the Kingdom has been planted, it obviously hasn’t yet taken over the entire garden (Matt 13:31-42). We continue to live in an oppressed, corrupted world. We live…
Guest Post: Reasons Why You Should Pray More
Category: General
Tags: Jared Brock, Prayer
Despite the fact that the Bible is full of prayerful people, most churches today don’t pray very much at all. In fact, we barely talk about prayer, even though it’s one of the most foundational…
Lighten Up: How Christians Sign Emails
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Jared Brock, Lighten Up
Thanks Jared!
Is God All-Powerful?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Free Will, Letters from a Skeptic, Love, Omnipotence, Open Theism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
I want to answer yes and no. God is all-powerful in the sense that God originally possessed all power. Before Creation, God was the only being who existed, and thus had all the power there…
Sermon Clip: Generic God
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Christian Life, Greg Boyd, Kingdom Living, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
“Let’s all just get along.” Is this what God and religion are really about? All we have to do is just be good to people? Almost all religions can agree on this, but it is…