Jesus
The Cross Reveals God’s Love
Category: General
Tags: Character of God, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Easter, God, Jesus
The central way Christ functions as the perfect image and exact representation of God is by dying on the cross. While Christ’s entire life manifests the true God, Christ came primarily to die. It was…
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…
Jesus and the Reality of Spiritual Warfare
Category: General
Tags: Demons, Jesus, Satan, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
In yesterday’s post, we discussed how challenging it can be to believe in the reality of a spiritual realm in the modern world. Today, let’s look at how Jesus’ ministry relates to this spiritual reality….
Do the Gospels Promote Anti-Semitism?
Category: General
Tags: Anti-Semitism, Gospels, Jesus, Religious Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at various passages from the Gospels that have been used by some to argue that Jesus condones violence. Here is a link to each of…
Why Didn’t Jesus Denounce Military Service?
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Military, Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
A common objection to the claim that Jesus and the authors of the New Testament were opposed to all forms of violence is that neither Jesus nor anyone else speaks out against it. When soldiers…
Did Jesus Instruct Us to Arm Ourselves?
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Kingdom Living, Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Verse: Luke 22
Over the past few posts, I’ve been dealing with the passages that are frequently used to argue how Jesus condoned violence. One of these takes place just after the last supper and just before Jesus and…
Jesus Came to Bring a Sword?
Category: General
Tags: Conflict, Jesus, Non-Violence, Peace
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Verse: Matthew 10
Jesus said: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt 10:34). Some, both modern scholars along with church leaders…
Why Did Jesus Curse a Barren Fig Tree?
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
While no one argues that the NT advocates violence explicitly, many allege that some passages reflect violent attitudes toward outsiders, and especially toward non-believing Jews, while others detect an element of violence in some of…
Violent Parables?
Category: General
Tags: God's Character, Jesus, Non-Violence, Parables
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Some try to argue that Jesus did not make loving enemies and refraining from violence an absolute mandate. They make their case on the basis of several passages from the Gospels. The first concerns the…
Was Jesus Unloving Towards the Pharisees?
Category: General
Tags: Enemy Love, Jesus, Love
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Some claim that Jesus spoke to religious leaders in ways that did not reflect the love of the cross. In his climatic encounter with the Pharisees in Matthew 23, Jesus’ words were undeniably harsh. He…
The Cross in the Manger, Part 2
Category: General
Tags: Christmas, Cross, Jesus, Power, Upside-Down Kingdom
Topics: Christology
While some shepherds were tending their flock, an angel appeared to them announcing “good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” for it news about “a Savior…the Messiah, the Lord” (Lk 2:10-11)….
The Cross in the Manger
Category: General
Tags: Christmas, Cross, Incarnation, Jesus, Jürgen Moltmann, T. F. Torrance
Topics: Christology
There has been a strand within the Western theological tradition—one that is especially prevalent in contemporary American Evangelicalism—that construes the significance of the cross in strictly soteriological terms. The cross is central, in this view,…
Why Believe the Virgin Birth Accounts?
Category: General
Tags: Apologetics, Jesus, Reliability of the Gospels
Some skeptics claim that the story of the virgin birth of Jesus is derived from similar stories from pagan literature. While I won’t address here the details of the various parallels that some use to…
God is Not a Monster
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Character of God, God is Love, Jesus
Pastor Brian Zhand has a way with words that captures the imagination. And he is a pastor that has taken time to read the church fathers. In a recent post, he quotes Saint Antony who wrote, “I no longer…
Thankful for the Passion of God
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Character of God, Classical Theism, God, Jesus, Thanksgiving
The classical view of God has held that God is impassible, meaning he is above pathos (passion or emotions). The main reason the church came to this view was that, following the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, they associated…
Lighten Up: The Jesus Eraser
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Jesus, Peacemaking
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…” Ephesians 2:14 Image by David Hayward @ www.nakedpastor.com.
How to Interpret the Law of the Old Testament
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, God, Jesus, Law, Old Testament
Topics: Attributes and Character, Biblical Interpretation
While there are multitudes of passages in the OT that reflect an awareness that people are too sinful to be rightly related to God on the basis of the law, there is a strand that…
The Starting Point for “Knowing God”
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, God, Jesus, Luther, Transcendence
While it makes sense that Hellenistic philosophers embraced knowledge of God as the simple, necessary and immutable One in an attempt to explain the ever-changing, composite, contingent world (see post here for what this means),…
