Cruciformity is essential for understanding everything about being Christian and for being satisfied in living as Christian people.  By cruciformity I mean having every aspect of our lives and church communities oriented by the cross-shaped life of Jesus. Cruciformity is a powerful notion because it is the only way to gain access to the resurrection […]

Show us your mercy, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Clothe your ministers with righteousness, let your people sing with joy. Give peace, O Lord, in all the world, for only in you can we live in safety. Lord, keep your people under your care, and guide us in the way of justice and truth. […]

I had a molar the size of a Volkswagen pulled last week.  Wanting to fully lean into the pain, I watched a few Coen Bros. films, including “A Serious Man,” a work of pure genius. The first few times I saw the film, I was pretty convinced that it was a contemporary retelling of the Book […]

Ed Stetzer reviewed Kevin DeYoung’s and Greg Gilbert’s book, What Is the Mission of the Church? in Themelios. I haven’t been reviewing the book so much as engaging it in conversation, so just a few points succinctly stated.   Ed notes that the book has a muted doctrine of creation.  I agree, though I put things […]

Contemporary American life has become, in so many ways, a spectator sport.  We pass judgment on the lives of others without much self-reflection and often without full knowledge of the complexities involved.  Doing so gives us a measure of self-assurance in the moral strength of our own character.  Such self-assurance may indeed be self-deception. A […]

Bill Curry, former head football coach at Alabama, was interviewed last week by Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio.  It’s probably the best set of comments on the whole affair at Penn State.  You can listen to the interview here: I was struck by a few things. First, Curry talked about the sacred trust given […]

I wrote last week that the global church’s task is to understand, live into, and speak truthfully about the character of the world in all its facets.  The church calendar aids God’s people in this task, with seasons for celebration, expectation, lament, and hope.  Consider also the canon of Scripture, with its variety of genres, […]

O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom: Defend us, thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of […]

Jesus tells stories in order to shape his disciples’ imaginations according to the realities of the Kingdom of God.  He opens up imaginative worlds and calls disciples to inhabit them and learn from them the ways of God with his people.  Wise disciples learn the lessons Jesus is teaching. I find that modern Bible readers […]

I enjoyed a great conversation last night after class about extremes in the life of the church.  God has come in triumph and Scripture expresses this reality with the rhetoric of victory.  But there’s something wrong about triumphalism. On the other hand, we are saved by the cross of Christ and our existence as Christian […]