When the Merry Is Missing: the True Tidings of Joy
Reality doesn’t always line up with our desires.
Frustrated expectations, painful memories, and difficult relations can turn some of us into Scrooges. For Christians, they may validate the objections of some Reformers and Puritans against what they saw as a recycled pagan holiday. But whatever we think of Christmas and the way it is celebrated, we are still called to be a witness... Continue Reading
Delighting in the Trinity
To dive into the Trinity is a chance to taste and see that the Lord is good, to have your heart won and your self refreshed.
It is only when you grasp what it means for God to be a Trinity that you really sense the beauty, the overflowing kindness, the heart-grabbing loveliness of God. If the Trinity were something we could shave off of God, we would not be relieving Him of some irksome weight; we would be shearing Him... Continue Reading
Sexual Temptation Is Not Primarily About the Body
Rather, sexual temptation and sexual sin are primarily about our hearts.
Here, especially because of how we’ve been trained by our sexual-revolution-influenced culture, we tend to think that it’s mainly an issue of our bodies. We presume it’s bodily urges that lead to our bodily temptations. We find ourselves believing that it’s primarily because we’re fallen and our bodies are broken that we face sexual temptation.... Continue Reading
How to Read Hosea Theologically: Part 3
Hosea’s images of God’s persistent love for his people/children in the contexts of a failed marriage (chs. 1-3) and of the open rebellion of God’s children (ch. 11) demonstrate that salvation is God’s alone.
At the heart of Hosea’s charge against Israel is her not “knowing” the Lord (4:1). The knowledge of God signifies a dynamic and growing covenantal relationship that comes to expression in an integrated lifestyle that is consistent with the “covenant” relationship. The covenant is graciously initiated by God himself. It is like a marriage in... Continue Reading
Whose Son Is He?
How the Gospels Whisper Christ’s Divinity
While Jesus does not wear a cloak emblazoned with “I am God,” the Gospels are full of indications that he saw himself not only as Israel’s Messiah, but as Israel’s true God as well. A divine Messiah. Let us sketch three main ways we see this, first in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and then... Continue Reading
Relationship – The Key to True Prayer
Prayer is a familiar way of speaking to God by someone who is intimately acquainted with Him.
Throughout this section of Sermon of the Mount, Jesus is speaking to His disciples about the difference that grace in the heart makes, how it is the key to a deeper righteousness than the Pharisees ever had, indeed than they could even understand. They saw the doing of good works, things like prayer and almsgiving... Continue Reading
Your God Is Too Big
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth."
Giant Christmas trees. Times Square in NYC has decked the halls. The tallest Christmas tree in America is in Idaho. But it’s all about the spectacular. It’s always been about the spectacular. The big. The great. The large. Well, if that’s what you think Christmas is all about then your God is too big. Because Christmas is... Continue Reading
Context Matters: Peace on Earth
The angels announce and pray for peace “among those with whom he is pleased.”
Luke deliberately calls attention to the political setting of his narrative in the first two chapters; he mentions King Herod (Luke 1:5), Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1), and the Syrian governor Quirinius (Luke 2:2). Mary praises her God who has “brought down the mighty from their thrones” (Luke 1:52). During the Roman occupation of Jewish land,... Continue Reading
Go Home
Learn from the Shepherds. Meet Christ and then go back to magnificent houses or tarpaper shacks.
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God … Returned to where? They returned to where they were when the angel appeared to them to give them the announcement. They returned to their work. They returned to being the social outcasts that they were according to the community standards and traditions of the time. They went,... Continue Reading
God and Our Worst Moments (Micah 5:2-5)
Micah should cause us all to examine our lives. And yet he leaves us with hope.
Some of us think God is lenient about sin. Or at least we think that God is more tolerant of sin for Christians. We rightly emphasize God’s grace: that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). And we should emphasize God’s grace. But I sometimes worry that we’ve fallen into the mistake of... Continue Reading