I wrote yesterday about Abraham.  Today, I’ll say a bit about Israel and then state why their identity and vocation are important for thinking about the church’s mission. After delivering Israel from Egypt in the Exodus, God gives his people a new identity and a particular vocation.  They will be a “kingdom of priests” and […]

In the next two posts, I want to think through the identity and mission of both Abraham and Israel and look at how Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert address these in What Is the Mission of the Church? I had described God’s aims in creation and with humanity a few weeks ago.  God commissioned humanity […]

I’m teaching a course on the Book of Hebrews in the Spring semester and am selecting textbooks for it over the next few weeks. I’m planning to use two commentaries–David DeSilva’s socio-rhetorical commentary and James Thompson’s new commentary in the Paideia series.  I’ll have students work through an assigned passage for the week, reading both commentaries […]

* Given at Midtown Christian Community, April 30, 2005 O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can […]

A prayer of self-dedication: Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray you, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of […]

I mentioned the other day that according to the Apostle John, Jesus exegetes God in his earthly life (John 1:18).  God is indeed known from the Scriptural narratives in his relations with creation and Israel.  But the clearest and fullest expression of God is found in Jesus.  We might even say that Jesus improvises God.  […]

At several points in What Is the Mission of the Church? Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert go after guilt-oriented motivations for doing good in the world.  I completely agree with them on this note. My family and I were recently part of a ministry effort on behalf of the poor in our city that was […]

I’m very much enjoying Elizabeth Struthers Malbon’s Mark’s Jesus, a study of Mark’s narrative christology.  Her summary of the thrust of Mark’s narrative:   [T]he Markan Jesus who proclaims and participates in the in-breaking of the rule of God, restoring health to the powerless ill and hungry, both within his own group and beyond it, […]