The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and ever more and more occupied with Christ, that Christ becomes greater and greater as time goes by.
01141 – Life Governed by the Holy Spirit
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01135 – Church Purpose Matters
When we believe our church's purpose is to please us and make us happy, then we will withhold our money and withdraw our participation when we are displeased with our church. When we believe our church's purpose is to make us more like Jesus, we expect discomfort in...
01119 – Jesus’ Practice of Table-Fellowship
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...
01118 – Church: The Community of the Future
The people of Christ, the last Adam, is the people of the End and the New Age, the people of the future as well as the seed of Abraham. It is also the people of the Spirit, who is a sign of the End. Indeed Paul calls the Spirit an arrabon (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; cf. Eph....
01111 – Where Light & Dark Intermingle
To understand the story, we need to note how Jesus got into the desert in the first place--into this lonely and heart-breaking place where he was to face the hardest challenge he had yet known. Surely it was the devil who took him there. But the story says that Jesus...
01109 – How Long will God Seek Us?
Why should we find fault that God wants to extend the redemptive processes? Should that not be a cause of great rejoicing to us? If it's such a joy to win a soul on earth, why would it be any less of a joy to win it in the life hereafter? Would it really not be...
01107 – Experiencing Christ through Word and Sacrament
The disciples have now experienced Christ in word (interpreting the Scriptures) and sacrament (the breaking of bread). There is no doubt that Luke is writing not only the story of Jesus but also that of the church which knows him in these ways. The importance of...
01106 – Don’t React Violently
Jesus is not telling us to submit to evil, but to refuse to oppose it on its own terms. We are not to let the opponent dictate the methods of our opposition. He is urging us to transcend both passivity and violence by finding a third way, one that is at once assertive...
01105 – The Light of Jesus Gives Us Sight
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...
01102 – Many Images of God
The New Testament offers a wealth of images of God. God is not only like a forgiving father, but also like a mother hen longing for her straying offspring and a woman searching until she finds one lost coin. God in Christ is Lady Wisdom, divine Word, the Light of the...