Essay
Finding Christ Behind the “Letter” That Kills
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” Paul (2 Cor. 3:6) The Odd Way NT Authors Use the OT Have you ever noticed the rather strange way authors in the NT tend to use…
Does Jesus’ Abandonment on the Cross Destroy the Trinity?
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, An Open Orthodoxy, Cruciform Theology, Dwayne Polk, Essay, Father, God is Love, Godhead, Jesus, Tom Belt, Trinity, Trinity and Process
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Theological Method, Trinity
In my previous blog I argued that Jesus’ experience of God-forsakenness on the cross was genuine and that, as a matter of fact, there was a genuine abandonment of Jesus by the Father on the…
When God Abandoned God
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Father, Son, Trinity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Trinity
On the cross, Jesus’ cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46). These are arguably the most shocking, beautiful, and profoundly revelatory words…
Terror in the Night
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Fear, God, God's Love, Q&A, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
I’ll never forget the night it first happened to me. I was thirteen, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as if something was…
God’s Aikido Way of Defeating Evil
Category: Essays
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Demons, Essay, God, Jesus, Love, Non-Violence, Redemption
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
Greg continues his thoughts on the atonement with this installment highlighting the way God uses the evil intentions and actions of his enemies to bring about good. And because this strategy is based in love,…
Open Theism Timeline
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism, Tom Lukashow, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Open Theism
Open Theism Timeline by Tom Lukashow An argument that is frequently raised against the open view is that it is a recent innovation. Paul Eddy had discovered Calcidius, a fifth century advocate, and I and…
Penal Substitution View of Atonement: Did God the Father Just Need to Vent?
Category: Essays
Tags: Atonement, Essay, Forgiveness, God, God's Wrath, Jesus, Penal Substitution View of Atonement, Picture of God, Sin
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
In this video blog, Greg outlines the penal substitution view of atonement which says that the Father poured out his wrath on Jesus instead of us so that we could be forgiven. This view is…
A Revelation of Beauty Through Ugliness
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In my recent post, Getting Honest About the Dark Side of the Bible, I enlisted no less an authority than John Calvin to support my claim that we need to be forthright in acknowledging that…
What I Am, and Am Not, Doing In These Blog Posts
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, Picture of God
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In this post I’d like to try to help some potentially frustrated readers by explaining what I am, and am not, trying to accomplish in this series on the violent portraits of God in the…
A Coming Storm
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Debate, Essay, Evangelism, Jesus, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
There is a storm beginning to brew on the horizon. It is a debate among Evangelicals about the violent depictions of God, stirred up largely by Eric Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior. Here is a post…
The Phinehas vs. Jesus Conundrum
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Jesus, OT Violence, Phinehas, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I’ll be frank. This is not a blog that will be easy for some people to read. But it’s a blog I believe every follower of Jesus should read – even if you have to…
The REAL Problem with Divine Violence in the OT
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
As I mentioned in my previous blog, while I will continue to offer video-blogs responding to questions that come in, I’m also planning on sprinkling in reflections based on my forthcoming book, Crucifixion of the…
Reflections on Divine Violence in the Old Testament
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Jesus, Love, Old Testament, Picture of God, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
As some of you know, for the last five years I’ve been working on a book addressing the problem of divine violence in the OT. (For alleged violence in the NT, see Thomas R. Yoder…
The Rorschach Test
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Non-Violence, Open Theism, Rorschach Test, Truth
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
The choices we make will either increase or decrease our ability to recognize light when we see it. As we choose goodness, we increase our capacity for goodness. What do you see when you read the…
How NOT To Be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part IV
Category: Essays
Tags: Book Reviews, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God With Us
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
In the first three parts of this review of Scott Oliphint’s God with Us we’ve outline his attempt to reframe all God’s accommodations in Scripture in light of the Chalecedonian Creed. He, in essence, uses…
How NOT to be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part III
Category: Essays
Tags: Book Reviews, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God With Us
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
In the previous two posts on Oliphint’s God With Us, we’ve seen that Oliphint is trying to reframe divine accommodations in a Christ-centered way, but that what he means by this is not that he…
How NOT to be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part II
Category: Essays
Tags: Book Reviews, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God With Us
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
In Part I of my review of Scott Oliphint’s God With Us we saw that Oliphint is attempting to reframe divine accommodation in a Christ-centerd way. Yet, while he affirms that “Christ is the quintessential…
How NOT To Be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part I
Category: Essays
Tags: Book Reviews, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God With Us
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
Theologians throughout Church history have used the concept of divine accommodation to account for everything in Scripture that seemed “unworthy” of God. Whatever didn’t line up with what we know about God was seen as…
The Case for Including Open Theism Within Arminianism
Category: Essays
Tags: Arminianism, Essay, Open Theism, Roger Olson
Topics: Open Theism
Here is an excellent post by my good friend Roger Olson in which he makes the case that Open Theism should be embraced by Arminians as an orthodox, if somewhat non-traditional, form of their faith….
Homosexuality and the Church: Finding a “Third Way”
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Homosexuality, Love, Politics, Sexuality
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Here is a word I a shared this last weekend with Woodland Hills Church (where I’m senior pastor) in response to numerous questions I’ve received over the last several months. People have asked me why…