The Danger of “Christianness”

Gripped by this selection from Rejoicing in Christ by Michael Reeves: “. . . we naturally gravitate, it seems, toward anything but Jesus–and Christians almost as much as anyone–whether it’s ‘the Christian worldview,’ ‘grace,’ ‘the Bible’ or ‘the gospel,’ as if they were things in themselves that could save us.  Even ‘the cross’ can get abstracted from Jesus, as if the wood had some power of its own.  Other things, […]

The Sacrament of Sunrise

The sun rose beautifully on Memphis today.  And when the sun rose the gospel rose with it. I wonder if we might overplay our hand when we make the creation accounts in Gen 1-2 merely about, well, creation.  Is God merely trying to explain how things came to be, the science of origins? Or is God weaving in the created order the very fabric of the gospel he will work […]

He Died With No One’s Regret

“He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years; and he departed with no one’s regret, and they buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings” (2 Chron 21.20). Imagine strolling through a common cemetery when an ancient tombstone catches your eye.  You brush off the weeds and dirt to read: King Jehoram Son of Jehoshaphat […]

The Gospel Assumes Local Church Membership

Church membership means different things to different people.  In the Bible Belt South, church membership is one’s civic duty.  The Constantinian mandate.  In North Africa, church membership might well be a death wish.  In America, church membership may cost you a little time or a little money.  In much of the rest of the world, it may cost you a wife, house or freedom. Whatever it means wherever it means […]