the soy sauce incident
08.10.08 - 06:25pm
the resurrection isn’t an option
08.09.08 - 01:10pm
I recently heard someone claiming to be a Christian state that the resurrection of Jesus was something up for debate. This is an incoherent statement and impossible belief for anyone to hold while also claiming to believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Here’s a good N.T. Wright quotes, who has done some of the most extensive work on the resurrection:
“For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the heart of the gospel (not to the exclusion of the cross, of course, but not least as the event which gives the cross its meaning); it is the object of faith, the ground of justification, the basis for obedient Christian living, the motivation for unity, and, not least, the challenge to the principalities and powers. It is the event that declares that there is ‘another king’, and summons human beings to allegiance, and thereby to a different way of life, in fulfilment of the Jewish scriptures and in expectation of the final new world which began at Easter and which will be completed when the night is finally gone and the day has fully dawned.”
Paul makes such an idea clear when he talks to the Corinthian church about the first importance of the gospel: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures..”
what? no crystal ball
08.08.08 - 12:05am
No other pastor/theologian has been more influential in my understanding of the Scripture than John Piper. I got a needed word from reading a sermon of his from Romans 12:1-2 tonight as I’ve got some big decisions and thoughts running in my mind these days:
If you want to know the future details of God’s will of decree, you don’t want a renewed mind, you want a crystal ball. This is not called transformation and obedience; it’s called divination, soothsaying.
I know others in my life are experiencing similar struggles and I hope that can be an encouraging word to you as well.