I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one
Scripture Focus: You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself
Scripture Focus: But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the
Two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in countries where the birth rate has dropped to or below 2.1 babies per woman, the number needed to keep the population constant. When I first read that I was shocked by the language: 2.1 babies per woman. However, it was the concern that really got my attention. Experts are concerned that the
Our Wesleyan Anthropology, our story, should consist of: Freedom from Addictions and Restoration of Families People who are living witnesses of being set free from their addictions, of all kind. May families be released from the destruction of drugs and alcohol. May freedom from pornography help homes define the word “love” according to God’s holy lexicon. Healing Marriages
Scripture Focus: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us
Finally, to the chapter of our Worldview story that Wesleyans can make the most profound contribution, “What is the solution?” What is our Soteriology and Eschatology narrative? Understanding Eschatology: A New Heaven and a New Earth In Good biblical fashion, may I address the last question first? Eschatology. As you read the end of the Story; Rev 21-22, we discover
In my last article I focused on the notion of mission as “making disciples who make disciples.” I introduced the term “discipleship evangelism”, as the essence of evangelism. I hinted at the claim that there is “no great commission without the great commandment”. We must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and consequences, beliefs and actions. Good
What is our Hamartiology? Bill Arnold’s third question to establish a “world view story” has to do with “What has gone wrong? What is our Hamartiology?” (As a review, Harmartiology means our understanding of sin, or what’s gone wrong). We flow immediately from our “orienting story” in Genesis 1-2 to a “dys-orienting” one in Genesis Chapter 3. Yes, this can be seen
Scripture Focus: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing
The promise is not that we would be safe but that we would be faithful. The angel of God does not always spare us from tragedy or troubles, but enables us to look at tragedy troubles through different eyes.
I find myself walking in the semi-dark, friends clustered around me. Our hands are full, carrying materials to preserve a corpse. It was a long Sabbath. We were supposed to rest, so we did. But there’s no rest from thoughts of despair and grief. They follow you into every room you enter. Like we had followed Him. We saw the
We must be honest about our failures and sins. None of us lives up to the standards our faith demands. But this doesn’t mean we cease wrestling with and proclaiming the Word.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and
I confess that I don’t know that much about adoption. I used to tell my little brother that he was adopted—from the animal shelter. I have reaped the consequences of this in my own sons, as the generational dysfunction marches on. I remember lying in bed as an angsty teen, wondering what it would feel like to be chosen, wanted,
What makes us think we can make such an audacious request? The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Believing in a miracle, a rationally unexplainable occurrence, takes exactly what Tillich describes–a faith that transcends our comprehension without excluding our consciousness. In other words, we should know what we are asking for but not expect the miracle to come in ways we can
A proposed pipeline in my community has caused me to consider the nature of Christian faith and our lives as disciples. I’m not talking about the political, economic or environmental ramifications of pipelines, but the pros and cons of using the analogy of the Christian way of life, our discipleship, as a pipeline. On one hand, the idea of having
The mystery that surrounds us belongs to different modes of perception. That is why he said, “The heart has reasons the mind knows not of.” It is the heart that is able to see into that mystery. And it is why Paul said to the Ephesians, “I pray that God will enlighten the eyes of your heart, so you may
In his latest book, The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement, Michael Gorman argues that the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ atonement was to “create a transformed people, a (new) people living out a (new) covenant relationship with God together. Moreover, this people will not simply believe in
He described the Christian calendar as being like a spiral staircase: you come to the same point in the circle each year, but you have ascended higher up the stairs each year than you were the year before, or at least that is the purpose of the Christian calendar.
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