Jul 4, 2019 | Theology
Since everyone else it seems has commented on the unfortunate and untimely death of Ms. Evans, I figured I would as well because there are important lessons to be learned from her short time on this earth. In case you are not familiar with Evans, she was an author, blogger, and provocateur who embraced something called progressive Christianity. This version of the faith is nothing new, having been invented, if you will, in the early 20th century amid the fundamentalist-modernist controversies. Those conflicts gave us “liberal Christianity,” the forerunner of the progressive Christianity of today. (more…)
Jun 22, 2019 | Theology
All Evangelical Christians know what the gospel is, right? It’s the good news (in Greek) that Jesus died for our sins. Unfortunately, most Christians see the gospel as the means of becoming a Christian, and then it’s on to other things, like learning how to become a better Christian. The problem with this mindset is not only that it’s untrue, but that it turns Christianity into moralism, more law than gospel. The former is the means by which sinners think they can gain approval and acceptance before God, and at the same time proves we can’t. Law shows us the need for gospel! But unfortunately we too often confuse the two, and turn law into gospel, and gospel into law. That’s like confusing the Titanic with a rowboat!
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Jun 19, 2019 | Theology
One of the most important things we can teach our children is that people will always let us down. I’ve tried all their lives to teach mine to have realistic expectations about human nature, others and their own. This way when people inevitably do let us down, we are less likely to react in anger or self-pity or revenge, in other words negatively. One of my favorite responses to stories of annoying people in the lives of our kids is a question: Why has God put that person in your life? To learn how to love them! That itself is an annoying truth because it implies that people are not in my life primarily to make me happy, or to make my life easy. No, like everything else in our Christian lives, God uses people for our growth and his glory, and often for their good as well.
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Jun 1, 2019 | Theology
These famous, infamous for some, words of Jesus are followed by a further claim that offends many: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” This was just as offensive to people in the Jewish and Pagan environment of Jesus’ day, as it is in the secular environment of our own. I’ve had tussles with non-Christian who get visibly angry at the exclusivity of Jesus’ claims, as if I made it up! The real Jesus would never be so close-minded and narrow, they think. Actually he would, and if you read the gospels carefully, it’s stunning how absolute are Jesus’ words about who he is and what he’s come to accomplish, and the implications for people if they don’t accept him. The Jesus of the gospels is hard core, often harsh, and uncompromising. He confounds not only his enemies, but his closest followers, and even his own family. The New Testament knows nothing of the lovey dovey Jesus who accepts everyone just because.
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Jan 6, 2019 | Theology
I recently came upon this quote from 19th century British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (from his poem Maud). I wonder how many people feel Tennyson’s lament. I also wonder how many people understand that to be a follower of Jesus you must feel this way. What? You mean I need to continually be disappointed with myself? Yes. And since this website has something to do with parenting, we must also teach our children the importance and power of such disappointment in their lives. I’m sure I’ve come across the phrase before, but we can call this holy dissatisfaction.
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Dec 30, 2018 | Theology
The older I get, the more I realize why Jesus said that the law and the prophets can all be summed up in . . . . love. The problem with love, “twue wove,” is that it’s hard, as in really difficult. That’s because love means a certain dying to self, and we fallen, sinful creatures are quite fond of our selves. We are loathe by nature to see anything as not about us, our pleasure, our feelings, our desires, and on that goes. This brings to mind a story I recount in the book about learning this painful truth about love and my sinful self-centered self, and something I’ve used on my kids many times as they’ve grown up. I heard the phrase of this post’s title on a podcast recently, and it captures well the end to which love brings us: Right Relationship. The story recounts one among many ways God has tried to build this into my life.
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