A woman beds her father-in-law and then blackmails him when she becomes pregnant. A prostitute conspires with two Israeli spies to ambush her town. A widowed woman dolls herself up to catch a man, her disenfranchised mother-in-law’s idea to stay solvent. A woman commits adultery with a king while her husband is deployed in the king’s war. A small town’s finest church-going teenager mysteriously gets pregnant out of wedlock and no one knows who […]
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you (1 Pt 5.6-7). I do a fair bit of worrying. I worry about long-term, epitaph-related matters like vocation, character and legacy. I worry about our kids’ futures and my wife’s health. I worry about what might happen and what most likely won’t. I […]
Eugene Peterson writes in Tell it Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers (pp51-52): “Prayer can be learned only in the vocabulary and grammar of personal relationship: Father! Friend! It can never be a matter of getting the right words in the right order. It can never be a matter of good behavior or proper disposition or skillful manipulation. It can never be a […]
For many Christmas is as much about family feuds as it is family feasts. There is no greater family feud than the one at the first Christmas. God slipped into town through the ghetto and Satan stirred in the palace. Herod the Great heard someone Greater had been born (Mt 2.2). And in Bethlehem no less which only added to the Messianic lore (Mt 2.5). There had been pretenders before. […]
As part of God’s sanctifying providence Christians must endure difficult seasons of frustration. Some will be brief and others lengthy, but they will all test our affections and whittle away our worldliness. Our questions will not always be about God’s power or authority but about his care. Will he indeed mend the wounds he is right to cause? Answers will be few for most of them or at least selfishly […]
I will never forget a life-altering lesson learned fifteen years ago from my New Testament professor at Southern Seminary (long live Mother Southern). Dr. Mark Seifrid began each class with prayer. But not just any prayer. It was prayer remarkably different from the rote, I-know-exactly-what-this-deacon-is-going-to-pray-before-the-offering sort of prayers. They were far different than the “bless the gift and the giver for the nourishment of our bodies” variety. Dr. Seifrid’s prayers […]
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pt 2.9). The way of Jesus is not simply a supernatural life. It is in many respects an anti-natural life. It is indeed the cruciform life: a life shaped by the cross. Death of the […]
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous (Rom 5.19). The type/antitype relationship between Adam and Jesus in Romans 5 is a theological gold mine. In a sense, we can simplify all men down to this relationship. We are sons of Adam until we are sons of Christ. We are old men […]