I like to share my thoughts on theological and philosophical topics. I am also a student working through an MDiv and occasionally share papers on the blog. If you have any questions on a paper or blog post, send me a message! I’d love to talk with you about it.
Violent Night - Holy Night
Around the same time Jesus was born (possibly the same year) Herod the Great died. His reign was one of terror and paranoia, even for a Roman ruler. He murdered most of his family to secure his throne and was actually in the middle of attempting to execute his son for treason in the year he died. Herod’s paranoid, mass-terrorism reign was the only thing keeping Jewish Palestine from falling apart, however.
Jewish nationalist factions had tried to rise up over the last 150 years in revolt against what seemed to them an idolatrous display of Roman accommodation by Herod. In the wake of his death, his successor Archelaus (the poor kid was 19 years old) was pressured by Jewish mobs to punish elitists who were favored by Herod during his reign and to move the highpriesthood under new leadership.
A Different Look at The House On The Rock
For many, this parable is common sense—Listen to Jesus and know him deeply. Don’t be a shallow Christian who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. In our contemporary, Western context for living, this implies growing in our personal understanding of who Jesus is and letting its natural wisdom shape our lives into stable followers of his. I’m not about to contradict this aspect of the parable or say that it’s incorrect to have this takeaway, but if we look more closely at the context of this parable within Jesus’ ministry, there’s a whole lot more to it.
Why Worship is Better Than Sacrifice
Growing up in a Christian home and serving in various church activities all my life, I have heard my fair share of “God delights in mercy, not sacrifice” quotes. A leader usually shares this sentiment right before everyone is about to serve overtime in some big event or a draining ministry endeavor, just to remind us all that our laborious sacrifice is not what pleases God.
Just remember, God isn’t satisfied because of what we can offer him… Now go and overextend yourself for God’s sake, even though that’s not what makes Him happy.
Pentecost: Why Fire? Why Wind?
Pentecost is a beautiful picture of how God brings holiness into our lives. We are finally able to live a life worthy of the goodness of God thanks to the inner work of the Holy Spirit, but we have to take that holiness seriously. We’ve been purified in fire. We’ve been swept clean of debris. We’ve been made holy vessels. What are we doing with these vessels? Where is holiness in the grand scheme of our Christian priorities? Are we thanking God for the wind and fire that are making us clean? Or are we frustrated at the pain of righteous burning and heavenly sweeping?
If we’re embracing holiness, Pentecost is really good news.
God is a God of Order
There is an important theme that runs throughout scripture where God and the forces of darkness are juxtaposed between order and chaos. In the Torah, the prophets, and New Testament epistles chaos is the result of sin and rebellion. Where there is chaos, evil is reigning and death is winning. Then God comes in to heal and restore, and He brings order. He brings purpose, unity, structure, and harmony. ORDER.
If we go back to the very beginning of everything, we see God introducing this truth to us within the fabric of creation. In Genesis 1:2, on the first day of creation, the author describes the earth God created as “formless and void”
( ṯō-hū wā-ḇō-hū ). People often get stuck thinking about the scientific implications of an amorphous earth with whirling gases and fire, but this misses the more important element being introduced here: God is preparing a place for human beings to inhabit where they can be in close relationship with Him, but as of right now, the land is uninhabitable. It is a land of chaos, where human life cannot survive. It is a wasteland, a desolate wilderness. God is preparing a place of beauty and flourishing, but that place is not yet ready. When God is finished, the land will be “good,” and not stuck in a “not yet” state. A powerful picture is being presented here that will illuminate further the need for God’s grace and power to transform empty wildernesses into beautiful lands ready for God’s people to inhabit. God will defeat chaos and bring order.
Meet Jesus at the Table
Luke portrays the table as a place where human need meets divine grace. It is where the presence of Jesus transforms the sad remembrance of things past into the glorious promise of things to come.
In contrast to all other religious communities of their time, the early Christians had no temple, no statues, no priests, no special cult; the only thing visible was a table with a meal around which they came together every week. It was the continuation of the table fellowship of Jesus, and especially of that meal on the last evening together. It was a definitive gift from God and a central manifestation of the truth the church brought to the world.
God’s Promises in Unlikely Places
This small, simple passage about ritual purification regarding childbirth is a promise that echoes throughout all of eternity that God will make us, the rebellious, unclean, sinful wretches that we are, purified and able to enter into His presence once again.
Don’t rush through these chapters in the Bible. They may seem odd and out of place in our contemporary context, but there are powerful promises in them that reveal the hope of a good God who redeems His beloved creation, you and me.
On Sex and Marriage: Don’t Promise What the Bible Does Not.
The increasingly liberal message in the 80s and 90s was that men and women are freer and fulfilled by having numerous, diverse sexual encounters. Instead of correcting this false assumption and dismantling it, purity culture tried to offer the same fulfillment using sex but giving a different formula: “You will be freer and fulfilled by sex if you abstain until marriage.” This never works in any context with any cultural or moral issue. You cannot try to promise the same things secular culture promises but offer a different formula, because the truth of Christianity is that everything the secular world promises is often meaningless and finite. Christianity reveals a greater, fulfilling, and eternal promise that in relationship with our Creator, God, we have everything we want and need. Secular culture will never understand this, so it will never offer it. That’s why people who don’t understand what it means to have a relationship with Jesus are always trying to find fulfillment in something else. Disguising secular fulfillment by clothing it in Christian moral terms and boundaries does not help: If anything, it damages the idea of true Christian faith in the long run.
Don’t Downplay Worship for Justice
There’s a saying that makes its rounds every 10 years or so in nominal Christian circles, and it goes something like this:
“Jesus did not ask to be worshiped. He does not want our worship, he wants social justice.”
This is completely untrue, and it derives from classically liberal Christianity in the early 20th century. Before we get to that, however, let’s establish that God does care about justice, and Jesus does want to be worshiped. This nonsensical idea that we have to devalue one thing to elevate another is foolish and dangerous. We do not need to minimize God’s worship to elevate God’s justice. We should be extremely cautious not to minimize any aspect of God’s character to favor another. Common social reform philosophies do this all the time—they require that we identify and tear down a villain social group to elevate another, oppressed social group. In this context, the pious worshiper is the villain.
Is Church an Institution? Or People?
You, by yourself, are not the Church. You cannot be. In fact, if you manage to get a few other people who band together with you, and you all happen to be christians, you’re still not the Church. And here’s why…
The Church is God’s dynamic organism on earth, fulfilling His mission to spread His Kingdom of salvation and righteousness across the entire world. You are either working with other Christians to make that mission a reality, or you are sitting around complaining at how others are doing it wrong.
Significance of the Virginal Conception
The virgin conception is a reminder that God always makes a way when there seems to be no way. Only the God of the Hebrew scriptures, revealed through the person of Jesus, is the God who creates something out of nothing. When there was only darkness and emptiness, God created something magnificent. When there was no pathway for salvation, God created a pathway. The virgin birth proves this again.
