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Continue reading →: What did Jesus achieve?What did Jesus achieve? Jews at the time of Jesus expected the messiah to achieve a number to things: to defeat the enemies of Israel; to restore the Temple; to gather the exiles of Israel; and to teach the Torah to the nations. The earliest Christians, who were Jewish by…
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Continue reading →: Tradition and TestimonyEyewitness testimony about Jesus is more authoritative than personal gnosis about Jesus. Later traditions within the church are only authoritative to the extent they rest on the earliest traditions of the church; traditions documented in the writings we know as the New Testament.
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Continue reading →: The Lady Chosen By Our Lord: Contemplating The Church As MotherI’ve been reflecting on how Christianity can be said to have both a “Lady” and a “Lord.” The Second Epistle of John opens with an address “to the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth.” From the context, it seems likely that this…
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Continue reading →: Expanded HorizonsElder Aimilianos of Simonopetra once wrote: This new experience – this opening of the heavens and the expansion of the horizon – is one of the most beautiful experiences that a person can have. From then on, the character of our life is changed. From then on, we soar through…
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Continue reading →: Alexei Ospipov on the limits of experience and the knowledge of GodIs it really possible to deny God only because everyday experience does not give Him to us? But we know that “everyday experience” is in no way absolute, that it encompasses only some superficial sides of events and phenomena, that plain common sense is limited, and that there are many…
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Continue reading →: How Missional Can A Church Be?My experience is that it’s unrealistic to expect everyone in a church to be equally missional, just the same as it’s unrealistic to expect everyone in a church to be equally pastoral. What then should the focus of a local church be? Should it be sending or inviting? I think…
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Continue reading →: Worshipping As You GoAn essential aspect of a missional Christian lifestyle, in my experience, is worshipping as you go. If you’re going to be connecting with God in the world, if you’re going to be modelling church amongst the unchurched, it’s important to develop the discipline of worshipping God, wherever you are, with…
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Continue reading →: Worship Without ArtificialityI don’t know about you, but I find worship so much more meaningful when it’s stripped of all the artificial enhancements. No sound systems. No electric lights. Just the simplicity of being outdoors, under the open sky, with my bare feet touching the earth. There’s something about worshiping God in…
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Continue reading →: Who are you worshipping Monday to Saturday?Too often worship is put in a box. Many Christians speak of worship almost exclusively in terms of singing a few songs at a Sunday church service. But if your worship begins and ends on a Sunday, who or what is receiving your adoration and reverence Monday through Saturday?
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Continue reading →: Angels and Veneration in Ancient JudaismThe following excerpt is from Monotheism, Principal Angels, and the Background of Christology by W. Hurtado, University of Edinburgh. This is a pre-publication version of an invited chapter to appear in The Oxford Handbook to the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins. Jewish traditions place…
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