In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he lays out his vision of true humanness. We’ve spoken about this a bit in earlier postings, especially when we spoke about humans as the imago Dei, the image of God. God created humans in His own image (Gen. 1:26-28) so that they could be the people in whom and through whom He himself took care of His creation. This image-bearing task, however, required human beings to be filled with God’s wisdom. Read on →

Now that we’ve all celebrated Thanksgiving and are looking ahead to Christmas, it’s important to stop and think a bit about family. Whether your holiday has been filled with folks traveling to your home, or you yourself did the traveling to visit friends and family, or if you don’t have much family to connect with anymore and loneliness was a struggle this year: It’s more important at the holidays than any other time of year to remember that the church is first and foremost the Family of God, underneath God the Father and the Lord (and brother! Read on →

As Christians, we have a highly developed and sometimes complex way of “approaching God,” “doing spirituality,” or “being the body of Christ.” We attend church every Sunday morning, and sometimes on Wednesdays or Sunday nights. We read our Bibles, prayer before meals and on special occasions, give our tithes and offerings, and try to do all the other things that we believe we “should.” This is how we try to live as Christians in everyday life. Read on →

One of the foundational stories of the Old Testament is recorded in Exodus 1-15 and retold a hundred times over throughout the rest of the Bible. The Exodus story looks back to the creation of the world (Gen. 1-2), the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3), and God’s call of Abraham (Gen. 12) and his family to be God’s means of rescuing the world. However, God’s rescuing people are enslaved in Egypt at the end of Genesis. Read on →

What’s the whole Christian life about, anyway? We know that God created the world, and that He had a plan for it that went wrong… but what was that plan, and how does He make sure it is accomplished despite our fallenness? Paul teaches us that the whole point of God creating the world (or the Son of God who is also the image of God (Col. 1:15-16) creating the world), was so that the whole earth might be filled with human creatures who are conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus (Rom. Read on →

There’s a fascinating story in Mark 2:23-28 where Jesus and his disciples are walking through a field on the sabbath, and Jesus’ disciples begin picking heads of grain. However, the Pharisees, a massively influential political and religious pressure group during the period, saw what was happening and stepped in. They approached Jesus, and the following ensued: (2:24) “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” (2:25) And he [Jesus] said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? Read on →

What would you do if God called you to minister, and not just to minister, but to announce the saving love of God to a long-standing enemy? The Old Testament book of Jonah, no more than 4 little chapters, tells a story of God calling a man named Jonah to go and to preach coming judgment to the people of Nineveh. Now, a bit of the back story: At this time in Israel’s history, the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered and exiled by the powerful kingdom of Assyria in roughly 722 BCE. Read on →

One of the most fascinating, if usually ignored, texts in the Bible is the tiny little letter Paul wrote to Philemon. It’s made up of a mere 25 verses. In this dense little letter, however, we are given a tantalizing glimpse into the way in which Paul has internalized and personally appropriated the “Jesus-story.” We know from almost every letter that Paul thinks of Jesus as having taken upon himself the weight of sin for the whole world, putting down every one to his own account (especially Col. Read on →

“(1:26) Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (1:27) So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. Read on →

Our modern world is not about to become less individualistic. While the technological age which sprang upon us only a few decades ago—and which presses on us still!—has added some efficiency to our lives, it also seems to have added to our sense of isolation. This increasing social and cultural isolation is also one of the main reason why the word “community” has become so popular and the reality to which it points so urgently necessary. Read on →