Tag Archives: Jesus

Resurrection: More Than Heaven When You Die

(…the phrase, “think outside the box” originated with the nine-dot puzzle.) Once you go outside the box, there is more than one way to solve the problem. That is what Jesus does with Martha. He takes her outside the box, beyond the confines of the tomb. Continue reading →

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The Ministry of Jacks and Queens

Ancient Greeks thought that serving others was demeaning, which is why the Sophist asked, “How can a man be happy when he has to serve someone?” But Christians believed that serving others was a mark of greatness. Continue reading →

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Seven-Storied World: The Stories that Compose Literature

The English journalist Christopher Booker published “The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories” in 2004. He argues – some would say unsuccessfully – that all the stories we know belong to one of seven plot types. Continue reading →

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Kingdom Come (Mark 1:14-15)

Into this turbulent setting stepped a man who was larger than life. He seemed to be eight hundred years out of his time. He wore strange clothes, ate a weird diet, lived an ascetic lifestyle, and thundered like one of the prophets of old. Continue reading →

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Put It Where It Belongs: Where the Incarnation Fits in God’s Big Story

They think that if the faith is true, they should see evidence for it everywhere – a thousand … astonishing healings and nature-defying answers to prayer. Those things certainly happen …, but they usually happen in clusters around significant actions (some might call them intrusions) of God in history. Continue reading →

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This Is Your Brain on Jingles

If we are spending more time with Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow than with Jesus and Paul, it won’t be long before our thinking is out of kilter. Continue reading →

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All Things Are Yours: A Compelling Vision of the Christian Life

In Paul’s glorious vision of the Christian life, Jesus’s people have the power to force the world, life, death, things present, and things to come to serve their purpose. But Christians can only do this if they know their purpose and where they fit in the divine scheme of things. Continue reading →

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The God of Second Chances (Joshua 3-4)

When another chance – second chance or hundredth chance – will be helpful, it will be given. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of Second chances. Continue reading →

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Christians: Navigating the Approval Process

That symbol gives merchants and consumers confidence in the product they are selling and buying. God wants his people to have confidence in him and in his work in them. And he wants their friends, neighbors, and co-workers to be able to trust them. Continue reading →

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When Jesus Blew the Apostles’ Minds (John 4)

As she lowered her container into the well, she would have kept an eye on him. You can’t trust a Jew, she would be thinking. Continue reading →

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