No king nor bishop can or is able to command faith. That is the gift of God. To constrain princes and peoples to receive the one true religion of the gospel is wholly against the mind and merciful law of Christ.
04433 – One True Religion?
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04222 – Why Did Christ Come?
As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures,...
04148 – What Did Jesus Mean?
To read the Gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange words and deeds. For example, whenever the subject of poverty comes up in some circles, someone is bound to...
04123 – Western Individualism?
I suspect that Western individualism has done more than any other single factor to anesthetize and even euthanize the power of the Gospel. Salvation, heaven, hell, worthiness, grace, and eternal life all came to be read through the lens of separate ego, crowding God's...
04109 – Obey Men or Obey God?
If religious patriarchy was true, the angel of the Lord would have spoken first to Manoah about the miraculous conception of Samson. Instead, he spoke to Manoah’s wife—a woman—alone (Judges 13:2-24). If religious patriarchy was true, the angel Gabriel would have...
04108 – God Forgive Us
God forgive us for selling out our great intellectual treasure—the gospel of God with us—for a mess of psychobabble and pragmatic, utilitarian, self-help triviality.
04095 – Mary Magdalene Mattered
All four gospels witness to Mary Magdalene as the premier witness to the resurrection - alone or in a group, but in all cases named by name. . . All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. She does not run, she does...
04094 – “Eastertide and an Expanding Christ”
Eastertide and an Expanding Christ If Silent Saturday belongs to those grieving the death of the only Jesus they have ever known, Eastertide (the fifty days following Easter) belongs to those who are open to experiencing Jesus differently than they ever have....
03972 – Prosperity Gospel?
"Prosperity gospel" is saying certain principles, behaviors, practices, and obedience is necessary for God's blessing. If it's essentially "God wants you to do X and you (or your children) will be Y," that's a transactional relationship with God.
03851 – Western Churches and Heaven/Hell
Western churches continue to think about "going to heaven" or "going to hell" as the framework for the Gospel, but the Bible Story is not about us going somewhere but the Creator God coming to live with us.