Unlike other men, Jesus spoke freely to women in public. He taught theology to women. He had women as disciples or followers. He was clear that women would be active participants in the work of his kingdom from Gender Roles and the People of God: Rethinking What We...
The scriptural telling begins with how tragically flawed we are by our self-centeredness – Adam blaming Eve, Cain bashing Abel – and how slow we are to realize it – Samson with Delilah, David with Bathsheba.... But one day a man named Jesus appeared out of nowhere who...
I'm never surprised by evil, never paralyzed by despair. I'm a follower of Jesus.
Over 50 years ago LBJ's Kerner Commission (1968) predicted that the US was quickly “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate but unequal.” The most recent statistic I’ve found is that three-quarters of white Americans “don’t have a single nonwhite...
John's testimonials are lacking in content and repetitious: "Look! The Lamb of God!" Yet on the basis of his witness two of his followers become Jesus' first disciples. Having seen, John testifies so that others might see... As Karl Barth said, anybody who stops on...
This again is a great contradiction: though he [Jesus] was a Jew, his followers were not Jews.
Throughout his Gospel, Luke shows us Jesus praying. Jesus prays before he calls his disciples, before asking them who he is, at the time of his transfiguration, before teaching his disciples how to pray, on the night of his arrest, and at his death. For Luke, what is...
"Christ" means more than Jesus. It also refers to the new skein of relationships that arose around him during and after his life. Several biblical references support this interpretation. Paul frequently speaks of the Christ who dwells within him and within the other...
Mark depicts an entry which is triumphal only for Jesus' followers who have not yet understood his destiny as Son of Man. For Jesus, it is an entry into suffering and death. He enters Jerusalem as a pilgrim, and as more than a pilgrim. He makes no response to a royal...
For at least some of the followers of Jesus, maybe the worst day was the third one, Sunday, which for the Jews was like our Monday, with everything around them returning so completely to normal that it was impossible to believe that either his life or his death was...