We Christians proclaim “the gospel.” The word means “good news.” What happens when what we tell the world sounds old and worn — not “news” at all. Worse still, what happens when what we say doesn’t actually sound “good” to people? Sometimes looking away from our tracts and truisms, looking back to what Christians used to […]
The Big Do Over (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 8)
The idea of God giving us a big “do over” is right at the heart of the Christian season of Lent. People who have set out to follow Jesus spend time reflecting on the state of our lives. We find we aren’t meeting the standard. We don’t do this to beat ourselves up though. We are […]
Courtroom Drama: Why You Need Jesus to Be Human (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 16)
When you go to a movie you play a little trick on yourself. It is called “suspension of disbelief.” For about an hour and a half you watch in terror as asteroids smash the earth, or dolls transform themselves into monsters. You cheer for the hero — even when that hero is striving to do […]
3 Reasons You and I Need God to Go to Bat for Us
In several posts on the Trinity I have talked about the Christian claim that Jesus, born of Mary, is really truly God — the eternal Second Person of the Trinity walking among us. In our time is that not a very strange claim? With our current mish-mosh of scientific and post-modern assumptions, will people be able […]
Who Do You Say He Is? Christ the Mediator
One of the most important questions Jesus ever asked was “But who do you say that I am?” In Matthew, Mark and Luke this is his follow-up after asking his disciples what the crowds said about him. Everyone who tries to figure out what to do about Christianity has to ask this same question. We […]