General
Prayer and Co-Reigning with God
Category: General
Tags: Authority, Love, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare
God’s primary objective is a world in which free agents love God and one another. For this to be possible, people need a stable environment and freely chosen, irrevocable, morally responsible say-so. Prayer is simply…
The God of the Here and Now
Category: General
Tags: Practicing the Presence of God, Prayer, time
Several years ago an acquaintance told me she and her husband were going to travel to Lakeland, FL, where a “healing revival” had purportedly broken out. When I asked them if they were going because…
An Omni-Resourceful God
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Open Future, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
It is quite common for us to talk about the attributes of God as omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omni-present (present everywhere), but what about God’s unlimited resourcefulness? Consider the story of Moses’ commission in…
Paradigm Shift Questions
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A, Spiritual Warfare, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Open Theism
A couple that was recently introduced to ReKnew and several of my books recently wrote to tell me that they are in the process of embracing the warfare worldview along with the open view of…
Theology and Imagination
Category: General
Tags: Imagination, Prayer, Theology
The human brain is by far the most amazing, complex, and mysterious aspect of the physical world. Our brains continually interpret our world, and the way we interpret it is mostly determined by the way…
When God Needs an Intercessor
Category: General
Tags: Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, Intercession, Prayer
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Ezekiel 22
In the previous two posts, we have been exploring biblical narratives that point to how God’s knowledge is temporally conditioned and thus supports an open view of the future, or open theism as it is…
When God Discovers
Category: General
Tags: Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, Open Theism
Topics: Open Theism
Scripture consistently portrays God’s knowledge as conforming to the ways things really are, and part of the way things really are is temporally conditioned. Scripture never expresses the commonly-held sentiment that time is somewhat illusory….
When God Regrets
Category: General
Tags: Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, Future
Topics: Open Theism
The openness of the future is illustrated in the Bible’s depictions of God as grieving the outcome of decisions he himself has made. Regarding the incredible wickedness of humanity before Noah, for example, we read,…
Authentic Theology
Category: General
Tags: Auschwitz, Calvinism, Pain, The Work of the People, Theology
Topics: The Problem of Evil
So much theology does not do justice to the reality of the world. Any theology that’s going to claim to be authentic must be done on the edge of a mass grave of gassed children….
The Revelation of God in the Cross
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, God, Jesus, Love, Self-Sacrificial Love
The cross cannot be understood apart from the resurrection, just as the resurrection can never be understood apart from the cross. They are two sides of the same coin. If you consider the cross apart…
What the Cross Tells Us About God
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Transformation
Whether we’re talking about our relationship with God or with other people, the quality of the relationship can never go beyond the level of trust the relating parties have in each other’s character. We cannot…
What’s Your Worth?
Category: General
Tags: God's Love, Unsurpassable Worth
We know what something is worth to someone by what they are willing to pay for it. Out of love for us, God was willing to do nothing less than to go to the farthest…
The Risk of Love
Category: General
Tags: Creation, Free Will, freedom, God is Love, Trinity
The most basic and yet most profound teaching of the Bible is that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8; 16). He is revealed to be a God who is triune—Father, Son and Holy Spirit (See…
Why You Have Free Will
Category: General
Tags: Choice, Free Will, Open Theism
Topics: Free Will and the Future
God’s decision to create a cosmos that was capable of love and that was, therefore, populated with free agents (see previous post) was also a decision to create and govern a world he could not…
Love and Free Will
Category: General
Tags: Free Will, Love, Open Theism
Topics: Free Will and the Future
God could have easily created a world in which nothing evil could ever happen. But this world would not have been capable of love. God could have preprogrammed agents to say loving things and to…
The Kingdom of God ≠ Political Activism
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Kingdom Revolution, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Given the centrality of following Jesus’ example, it is vitally important we not only notice that Jesus was a revolutionary (see post) along with some ways that we can join his revolution (see that post…
7 Ways to Join the Kingdom Revolution
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Kingdom Revolution
Topics: Following Jesus
In the previous post, I introduced in short form the call to participate in the kingdom revolution that Jesus began. What does this mean for us today? Let me offer seven ways we are called…
Kingdom Revolution
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Revolution, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: The Church
To properly understand an action, you need to interpret it in the light of the social context in which it takes place. For example, if we were to hear about a white male offering his…
Covenant vs. Contract
Category: General
Topics: Faith & Doubt
Here’s another video clip that came out of Greg’s interviews with Travis Reed from The Work of the People. Is your faith covenantal or contractual?
God’s Church is Not “Pretty”
Category: General
Tags: Authenticity, Church, Community, Honesty, Love, Truth
Topics: The Church
This week we’ve been looking at various aspects of what it means to be the church. Today, I want to address the paradox of how the church can be both beautiful and ugly at the…