Category Archives: Jesus Christ

Wright Writings: Jesus’ Authority and the Kingdom

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“he taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes”

“Jesus was announcing a message, a word from Israel’s covenant god. He was not simply reshuffling the cards already dealt, the words of YHWH delivered in former times. Modern western culture does not have too many obvious models of the kind of thing he was doing .. But we may catch something of the required flavor if we say that Jesus was more like a politician on the campaign trail than a schoolmaster; more like a composer/conductor than a violin teacher; more like a subversive playwright than an actor.

He was a herald, the bringer of an urgent message that could not wait, could not become the stuff of academic debate. He was issuing a public announcement, like someone driving through a town with a loudhailer. He was issuing a public warning, like a man with a red flag heading off an imminent railway disaster. He was issuing a public invitation, like someone setting up a new political party and summoning all and sundry to sign up and help create a new world…

The old picture of Jesus as the teacher of timeless truths, or even the announcer of the essentially timeless call for decision, will simply have to go. His announcement of the kingdom was a warning of imminent catastrophe, a summons to an immediate change of heart and direction of life, an invitation to a new way of being Israel. Jesus announced that the reign of Israel’s god, so long-awaited, was now beginning; but, in the announcement and inauguration itself, he drastically but consistently redefined the concept of the reign of god itself.”

- from Jesus and The Victory of God, pages 171-172 

John Stott on Discpleship, Evangelism, and Holy Living

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Rest in Christ Reverend Stott – you have been a means of grace for many!

Hunting With Eyes Wide

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I have a prayer stand where I am learning to hunt. It’s elevated and beyond the senses of those who may stroll by on bike, car, or foot. I visit this location regularly as a farmer visits the soil. There is a pattern to my labors though. I just don’t close my eyes and draw an imaginary line from my concept of God to my concept of needs, and then  shoot out words rapidly like an automated assembly line in hope they will correctly assemble for me the desires of my imagination.

No. I cannot hunt with my eyes wide shut, but nor can I see with my eyes wide open. There is an emptying and a filling that must occur. An apophatic prayer, the emptying of that which entangles and inhibits me as an intercessor, but also a kataphatic prayer, seeing through the lens of the Great Victory of God.

So, I close one eye and focus the other. Steadying my breathing. Concentrating on my environment. Waiting patiently to see that which is imagined become manifest in objective reality. Growing in courage to pull the trigger when I see it break through… BAM!

Veni Creator Spiritus, Come, Creator Spirit for with eyes wide open I am blinded by the glory of God and with eyes wide shut I miss the cries of the needy.

But don’t be mistaken. My prayer stand isn’t so much about hunting as it is about daily orienting myself to the hunt. A daily abiding in holy attentiveness to Him who prays for His Father’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Lent Reflections: The Servant of Gethsemane

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Last week my friend Joshua Toepper (www.trinitarianmission.com) and I spent the day hiking, praying, and listening to God at the Abbey of Gethsemane. The following video is a reflection from one of the statues in the woods:

Transfiguration Sunday and the Longing of Epiphany

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Yesterday was transfiguration Sunday which marks a peak of ascent in the Christian calendar and journey. It is from the vantage point of the mountain of transfiguration that we see behind us the season of Epiphany and before us the season of Easter. Behind us is Christ’s baptism and before us is his death and resurrection.  It is from this vantage point that along with Peter and James, we see Christ transfigured before us and then from out of a cloud of unapproachable light, we hear the words, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17:1-9).

These words spoken from God the Father act as a segue from Epiphany into the season of lent. From the action of Christ’s baptism (in Epiphany) to its meaning for us (Easter). The first phrase from the clouds of the Mountain of Transfiguration was first spoken at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel:

“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:16-17

After these words were spoken at Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3, we find Jesus being, “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights.” (Mat. 4:1) This brings us to the longing of lent:

  • To not live by bread alone, but by the words that come from the mouth of God. (Mat. 4:3-4)
  • To not put the LORD to the test (Mat. 4:5-7)
  • To dismiss Satan with our worship of “The LORD our God, serving him alone.” (Mat.4:8-10).

On the mountain of transfiguration where we stand in the Church calendar we are invited into this season of Longing, of Lent with the words, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” So we respond to the Epiphany of Jesus as God with obedience; listening and following Christ into a wilderness season of Lent that leads to the death and new life of Easter.

Fissiparous Fundamentalism

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Specimen A: (The Ambiguity Guy) A promo video filmed for Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Specimen B: The Response (The Fundamentalist Folks) to the Promo (not the book since it is not yet released):

- “Farewell Rob Bell” (referring to Bell now being ‘outside’ Christian fellowship) – John Piper

-  Jason Taylor after calling Bell an Universalist, ”Farther and farther away from anything resembling biblical Christianity.”

Specimen C:  Fis-sip-a-rous, meaning, “Tending to break up into parts or break away from a main body; factious.”

Specimen D: Fundamentalism, meaning, “A strict adherence to specific set of theological doctrines typically in reaction against the theology of Modernism.”

Specimen E: Jesus’ Prayer:

John 17: 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,  21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,  23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.  26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Conclusions?

Comments?