There is not a syllable in the Pauline letters that can be cited in support of Christians employing violence. Paul's occasional uses of military imagery (e.g., 2 Cor. 10:3-6, Phil. 1:27-30) actually have the opposite effect: the warfare imagery is drafted into the...
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...
Many are troubled because the gospel interferes with their sin.
So Jesus' practice of table-fellowship was not only an expression of the good news of God's kingly rule. It was also an implicit critique of a Pharisaic definition of acceptability, of a Pharisaic practice which classified many fellow Jews as sinners, effectively...
The more we are drawn into the light of Jesus, the more we have our eyes opened by the gospel. The more we have our eyes opened by the gospel, the more things we see, the more we see how the old world is captive to the powers of darkness and the forces of death, the...
I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The...
When we are able to trust the gospel that our human love of God and one another is the sum total of what we were put on earth to do, and that we have everything we need to be human, then redeeming things will continue to happen, both because and in spite of us.
The most significant affirmation of women in the New Testament may well be found in the tradition made prominent in all four Gospels that women were the ones to find the tomb of Jesus empty; that according to Mark and Luke the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection was...
The generosity of a believer is a response to Jesus Christ and never merely a “human” virtue. The gospel is about the generosity of God: God owed us nothing, and yet out of sheer enthusiasm for us and desire of our well-being, God sent Jesus Christ… Through the...
Since Christ is the central figure of the new covenant, he is also the central focus of all authentic Christian worship. Christ is both the one whom we worship and the one through whom we worship, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ is also the one whom we...