At the end of His ministry, Jesus commissions His eleven apostles to continue His mission to call Israel to bear the fruits of repentance, to make disciples, and to imitate His manner of life. Jesus then ascends to the heavens on a cloud. This episode looks at a common misunderstanding of "the Great Commission" as well as the theological significance of Jesus' ascension.
All resources referencing 1 Corinthians 15
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While all four of the Gospels give unique details surrounding the events of Jesus' resurrection from the dead, and while those details can be difficult to perfectly harmonize, each of the authors affirm the importance of the resurrection event as the confirmation that Jesus was who He claimed to be, and that God would be faithful to everything He had promised in the Law and the Prophets.
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Upon His entry into Jerusalem on Monday, Jesus once again turns over the tables of the money changers in the Temple - something He has done once before at the beginning of His ministry. While He taught during the day, He also quoted Isaiah 56 and Psalm 8 to the sneering Pharisees and Jewish authorities, asserting His identity as the God of Israel. This episode looks at the events of Monday of Passion Week.
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The blogosphere and social media world have recently been filled with news of atrocities taking place all over the Middle East (some of which are just rumors spread by social media). One of the affected cities is Mosul, Iraq where a Muslim group, ISIS, has taken control. Christians have been driven from their homes and forced to renounce Christ at the penalty of death. Syrian Christians have recently also been heavily oppressed by Muslims.
If we were Christians living in the Roman...
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At some point after Jesus cleanses the Temple, He meets with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. In this well-known scene in John 3, Jesus corrects Nicodemus' confidence and hope. Jesus was indeed the Messiah but would not establish His kingdom by an insurrection, and adherence to the Law of Moses qualify anyone to be a part of it. With a historical and biblical background, Jesus' words with Nicodemus take on a meaning that is quite different from the understanding of many today.
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Immediately following His baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where He remains for 40 days. During that time, Satan tests Him on three specific instances. This episode develops the significance of the tests and why it is important that Jesus emerged victoriously.
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The church and the state have become increasingly entangled since Constantine's rise to power in Europe in the early 4th century. Theologians call this time the Constantinian shift where Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire. As Christianity was legalized, persecution virtually stopped. The church began to acquire power, wealth, and land in Europe like never before. Theology was altered and the "spiritual interpretation" hermeneutic began to take root, dramatically affecting the church'...
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A friend recently showed me a very intriguing cover story on the April 14th edition of Time Magazine. Entitled Rethinking Heaven, the article describes how modern evangelicals are seeking to recover the hope of "heaven". Though the article lacked a correct biblical perspective and had no mention of Jesus and His glory, I did appreciate the article's emphasis on a need to reevaluate the widely-held understanding of a "never ending worship service in the clouds" that many believers (and unbelievers) have in their mind when picturing "heaven".
At the deepest core of our...
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There is much talk in the church today about "inheritance". From healing and the ending of injustices to great revival and financial prosperity, what some have haphazardly or intentionally called the "inheritance" of the believer either falls far short or is completely set against the Bible's description of our inheritance. Put simply, we have mistaken our childhood $5/week 'allowance' for an opulent estate and ownership of the family business.
A day is coming when God will dwell among men on the earth again (Revelation 21:3), when there is no more death, sorrow, crying...
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In my last post of this short series, I briefly wrote about what it means to “deny ourselves” and how it specifically relates to obedience, the way that God defines how we love Him. Jesus’ call to deny ourselves entails a violent, radical resistance to self-promotion, self-preservation, and every expression of self-service in our time, emotions, thoughts, money, and every level of our existence. It requires a reorientation of our entire existence to understanding that we take in...