General
A ReKnew Website Primer
Category: General
Tags: Curiosity, Knowledge, ReKnew, Theology
In many ways, the ReKnew website has become something like an introductory systematic theology resource centered around the beautiful God we find in Jesus. It is a resource that helps us rethink twelve core theological…
What God Requires
Category: General
Tags: Love, Obedience
Topics: Following Jesus
The reason we were created and what we are called to be is summed up in one word: love. The central defining truth of those who follow Jesus is that in Christ God ascribed unsurpassable…
Why God Made You
Category: General
Tags: Love, Trinity
The life God has for each one of us is a life of perfect love, one that eternally unites us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why God made us. It’s what…
The Easiest (and Hardest) Spiritual Discipline
Category: General
Tags: Practicing the Presence of God, Prayer
The glory of God surrounds you every second of every day. What a profound truth! But most of the time—like a dark cloud blocking the sun—the mental chatter about the past and the future keeps…
The Center of the Bible
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Over the past few posts, we’ve been discussing various aspects of the Bible’s authority. We talked about the God-breathed nature of the book, reasons why we can trust it, and about what to do with…
When the Bible has Errors
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority, Inerrancy, Infallibility
Topics: Biblical Reliability
In the previous post, we dealt with the question of why we are able to trust Scripture. But we need to explore this further because if you read the Bible carefully, you will find parts…
Why Trust the Bible?
Category: General
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Biblical Authority
Topics: Biblical Reliability
A skeptic might point out that the proof regarding the authority of the Bible that we discussed in the previous post depends upon the Bible to prove its own inspiration. This might work for people…
The Authority of the Bible
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority
Topics: Biblical Reliability
When sworn into office, judges in America promise to uphold the Constitution of the United States. In their role as a judge, they often wrestle with the right way to interpret and apply the Constitution….
The Final Battle in Revelation
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, Eschatology, Jesus, Non-Violence, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I will conclude this series on the violent imagery in Revelation by addressing the infamous eschatological battle scene found in 19:11-21, for it is this graphically violent section of Revelation that is most frequently appealed…
God’s Kind of Holy War
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, Jesus, Lamb of God, Self-Sacrificial Love, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
This is part three of a series on Revelation. You can find part one here and part two here. While there will come a day when the sacrificial victory of the Lamb and of his…
The Key to Understanding Revelation
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, End Times, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
The most important key to interpreting John’s violent imagery is found in the heavenly throne room scene in chapters 4-5. (For the first entry in this series on the violence in Revelation, click here.) This…
Unpacking Revelation: Is it Literal?
Category: General
Tags: Bible Interpretation, Book of Revelation, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, End Times
According to many scholars as well as many Christian laypeople, the Jesus we find in the book of Revelation engages in a great deal of violence. This violence reaches a zenith in chapter 19 where…
Voluntary Suffering and the Kingdom
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Power, Self-Sacrificial Love, Suffering
Topics: Following Jesus
In a post from two days ago, I wrote about the call to voluntary suffering for others as it is laid out in the New Testament. For the first three centuries of the church, Christians…
God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense
Category: General
Tags: Book Reviews, Cruciform Theology, freedom, Open Theism, Problem of Evil, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: The Problem of Evil
As the title suggests, in his book, God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman argues that the Bible has nothing compelling to say about…
The Call to Suffer
Category: General
Tags: Judgment, Justice, Kingdom Living, Self-Sacrificial Love, Suffering
Topics: Following Jesus
Paul tells us that in all our relations, we are to “have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had” (Phil 2:5). Though he was “in very nature God,” he didn’t cling to this status….
6 Ways Satan Hinders the Church
Category: General
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Though Satan is in principle defeated, we still need to be rescued “from the present evil age” (Gal 1:4) and to “struggle … against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this…
Giant Jesus
Category: General
Tags: Church, Discipleship, Incarnation
Topics: The Church
Yesterday’s post featured a video of Greg sharing about the role of the church in manifesting God’s character to the world. Here are some follow-up thoughts on that topic. The NT often uses the metaphor…
Manifesting God’s Character
Category: General, Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: The Church, The Kingdom of God, The Work of the People
Topics: The Church
What is the role of the church in God’s kingdom? Greg says that the role of the church is to be who we are. Then our doing flows out of our being. When we are who we…
5 Distinctions of God’s Kingdom
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of this World, Nationalism
Topics: Following Jesus
Jesus said that his kingdom was “not from this world,” for it contrasts with the kingdom of the world in every possible way. This is not a simple contrast between good and evil. The contrast…
Lord Willing?
Category: General
Tags: Death, Jessica Kelley, Problem of Evil, Suffering, Warfare Worldview
Topics: The Problem of Evil
Lord Willing? Wrestling with God’s Role in My Child’s Death, by Jessica Kelley In November 2012, I received one of the most touching emails I have ever received. A young mother named Jessica Kelley explained…