Category: Bible
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God Is Not a Legalist (And Righteousness Isn’t What You Thought It Was) – Part 2
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! Righteousness is not what you think it is. When it comes to righteousness, most of us think like Pharisees. We see it as a position we must earn or else…
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God Is Not a Legalist (And Righteousness Isn’t What You Thought It Was) – Part 1
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! We don’t say it, but most of us understand the Sermon on the Mount as one giant losing proposition. We cannot possibly be as righteous as it calls us to…
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The Gospel According to Jesus
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! The Beatitudes, so familiar and easy to gloss over, are breathtaking when we see them clearly. Far from just a disjointed list of niceties, these kingdom blessings encompass the gospel…
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The Hidden Gospel in the Heart of the Beatitudes
Several years ago I was supposed to speak at a women’s conference here in Ontario on the Beatitudes and the kingdom of God. The idea was “seeing yourself through a kingdom lens.” I’d suggested that topic in part because it was specific but still broad enough for me to develop my talk over time, as…
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Blessed Are the Spiritually Impoverished, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is Theirs
The first blessing Jesus gives in the Beatitudes makes no sense at all. Poverty is not a “happy” state (makarios, the Greek word for “blessed,” is also translated “happy”). To be poor is devastating, not blessed. It is not a virtue to be poor in spirit: to be poor in spirit means we have no…
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Purpose, Identity, and Why We Don’t Start with the Great Commission
Matthew 4:18-22 tells the story of the day Jesus called his first disciples: While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you…
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“If You Are”: What the Temptation of Jesus Reveals About Our Deadliest Trap
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. After He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. Then the tempter approached Him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’” (Matthew 4:1-3, HCSB) For years I…
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To “Repent” Is to Hope: The Real Meaning of Jesus’ Call to Repentance
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:1-2, ESV) To many of us I think the word “repent” conjures up visions of angry Baptists picketing funerals or rock concerts, or maybe of old-school preachers raining down fire and brimstone…
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Name Him Jesus; Call Him Immanuel: The Names of Jesus and the Point of Religion
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After Mary his mother had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant…
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“I Am”: How We Make God in Our Image … and How to Know Who He Really Is
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! When the children of Israel came out of the desert and God made a covenant with them, his very first two commands were these: You shall have no other gods…