Why Racial Reconciliation Matters
Category: General
Tags: Good News, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Kingdom of God, Racial Reconciliation, Unity
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
In Psalm 72, the author prays for a day when “all kings” would “bow down” to God’s anointed and when “all nations” would “serve him” (vs. 11). At this time, the Psalmist continues, God’s king…
Reversing Babel
Category: General
Tags: Conflict, Love, Racial Reconciliation
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Several generations after the flood, we read in Gen 11 how humans were still living in one locale and had one common language and culture. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea that they…
Black Lives Matter, the Police, and Spiritual Warfare
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Black Lives Matter, Current Events, Spiritual Warfare, Violence
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Christ calls us to stand for a different kind of kingdom and this requires that we think in different ways about the violence that is gripping our country. In this short clip from Greg’s sermon…
Listen and Learn: A First Step Toward Reconciliation
Category: General
Tags: Humility, Listening, Love, Racial Reconciliation
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Jesus Christ is not just the Lord, Savior and Messiah of the Jews: he is the Lord, Savior and Messiah of all people. Through Christ a kingdom is being established that tears down tribal walls…
Grieving
Category: General
Tags: Black Lives Matter, Current Events, Racism, Violence
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
I woke this morning to the news of the shooting death of Philando Castile by a police officer just a few miles from my home. He was pulled over because he had a broken tail…
What, Father, Do You Desire This Minute?
Category: General
Tags: God's Will, Obedience, Practicing the Presence of God, Prayer
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
Frank Laubach, a 20th century missionary to Philippines, wrote about the challenge of being continually aware of the presence of God and learning to respond to God’s promptings. He wrote, “I feel simply carried along…
Jesus’ Different Kind of Nation
Category: General
Tags: Blessing, Israel, Jesus, Kingdom of God, Nationalism, New Humanity
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
God called Abraham to form a unique nation by which “all peoples of the earth will be blessed.” The unique call of the descendants of Abraham was to become a nation of servant-priests whom God…
No Room for Judgment
Category: General
Tags: Homosexuality, Judgment, LGBTQ, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
In the light of the horrible violence in Orlando, and in response to the sickening judgmental statements that some Christian leaders have been making since the mass shooting about the victims who belong to the…
Women, Leadership, & the Bible
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Gender Roles, Women In Ministry
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Verse: 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3
Neither reason nor experience supports the notion that women cannot be gifted to exercise the highest levels of spiritual authority. There is simply no rationally discernable connection between a person’s gender and their natural ability…
Q&A: Condemning Sin
Category: Q&A
Tags: Discernment, Jesus, Judgment, Love, Sin
Topics: Sin
Q: I have a question about how you answer the rare occasions when Jesus apparently felt it necessary to publicly condemn sin: like the cleansing of the temple and his very strong judgments on Pharisees…
Some Thoughts on Women in Ministry
Category: General
Tags: Gender Roles, Leadership, Women In Ministry
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Throughout the testimony of Scripture, we have examples of God tolerating many things that are far from ideal in order to gradually transform the world in the direction he intends for us. For example, God’s ideal…
God’s Favor, Not Vengeance
Category: General
Tags: Enemy Love, Forgiveness, Jesus, Justice, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
Jesus began his ministry with a brief sermon in his hometown synagogue. Quoting Isaiah 61, Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to…
Revolting Against Classism
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Kingdom Living, Kingdom Revolution, Love
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
All fallen societies and religions have a tendency to rank people according to class. All have ways of separating the insiders from the outsiders, the holy from the unholy and the more important people from…
What is “Original Sin”?
Category: General
Tags: Idolatry, Sin, Sinful Nature, Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Topics: Sin
I get asked about “original sin” quite a bit. Are people born guilty? Many times questions like this originate from folks who are worried about whether babies who die without being baptized go to hell….
ReThinking the Source of Life
Category: General
Tags: Idolatry, Life, Love, Religious Idolatry, Theology
Topics: Following Jesus
Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the twelve convictions of the ReKnew Manifesto. The first of which focuses on where we get life. In many of my writings, I speak about the…
Christ the Center
Category: General
Tags: Authority, Belief, Bible, Faith, Jesus
Topics: Faith & Doubt
The center of the Christian faith is not anything we believe; it’s the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of my faith is a person, not a book and a set of beliefs about that…
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…
Dancing with the Triune God
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Judgment, Kingdom Living, Practicing the Presence of God, The Work of the People
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
What does it mean to live in the presence of God now? How do we do this? What does it mean to be in the presence of God for eternity? In this video produced by…
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…
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….