Category: Theology

One of the most interesting books of 2011 was Matthew Anderson’s Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith. It’s interesting in a couple of different ways, though. First, it’s interesting because it takes on just about every hot topic you could. . .

It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from Dec 25, 2007. And I Joseph was walking, and was not walking; and I looked up into the sky, and saw the sky astonished; and I looked up to the pole of the heavens, and saw it standing, and the birds of the air keeping still. ……

One of my favorite books from last year was Kelly Kapic & Justin Borger’s God So Loved He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity (Zondervan, 2010). It’s a meditation on divine generosity, and it reaches from the very nature of God (that high!) all the way down to financial decisions in daily life (that…

It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from Dec 24, 2010. Christmas is a big deal, and Christians know that they should celebrate it in a big way. In fact, there is something strange about how big a deal we are supposed to make of it. The most important things Jesus Christ did for our…

It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from Dec 25, 2008. No manger scene is complete without an ox and an ass in the picture. There also need to be sheep, of course, and there can be horses and cows and mice and birds and barncats and whatever else you’ve got space for. But the…

It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from 12/23/2008. My church is preaching its way through Advent, spending one sermon each on those descriptions of the promised one in Isaiah 9: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and last week we made it to Prince of Peace, a title so comprehensive that it will take…

It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from 12/17/2008. Christmas carols are usually pretty reliable teachers of theology. Of the sacred songs that we tend to hear a lot around Christmas time, we have a lot of great doctrine to sing in “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World,” and “Hark the Herald…

In the story of Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, there’s a bit of wordplay that doesn’t show up well in English. It’s a little Greek punning between the angel and the virgin. He says to her, “the child to be born will be called holy –the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her…

Over the past twenty years (or perhaps more) it has become common for American evangelicals to go “on retreat.” In the mid-nineteenth century if an evangelical Christian went to a monastery or retreat house they would be suspected of being Roman Catholic. Retreats were what monks, nuns and priests did, not what Protestants were expected…

My good friend and colleague Greg Peters’ sermon for the First Sunday of Advent inspired me to write a piece about the most quintessential aspect of the season of Advent that at first may strike one as morbid: the four “last things”: death, judgment, hell and heaven. When December comes around, we already see evidences…

After the long “green season” Advent is finally upon us! Today marks the beginning of that season in the church year when we anticipate and await the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the words of the apostle Paul that we read this morning, we “wait for the revealing of our Lord…