5. What is the Gospel (Good News)?

5. What is the Gospel (good news)?

If asked, most Christians would probably recite something along the lines of, “Jesus died for your sins so that you can have a relationship with God and so that you can go to heaven instead of hell when you die.” This is true, but it’s only part of the story, and a part which I’ve always found unsatisfactory in really feeling like good news. First, it says nothing about God, so (taken by itself) I don’t know if and/or why I should want to be in a relationship to God. Second, while heaven sounds like a good idea compared to hell, they both seem very far off and intangible to me. Since I haven’t tasted the heaven or hell of the afterlife, they do little to motivate me, make me feel like the gospel is Continue reading →

4. Who Is Jesus and Why Is He Important?

4. Who is Jesus and why is he important?

It seems pretty clear and universal that Jesus Christ plays a central role in Christianity (though one exception might be the Pentecostals, who focuses on the holy spirit). So, what is the deal with Christ? Probably the most common belief in our culture is that Jesus was a man who was simply a good moral teacher, someone like Ghandi or Muhammad. Christianity therefore, is just another flavor of religion. Religion is simply about doing spiritual things such as meditating, giving some (baseless) inspiration to the simple, and/or just becoming a “better person”. (The dark side of religion is that each thinks it’s right, and must persuade, coerce and even violently force itself on as many as Continue reading →

2. How Should The Bible Be Understood?

2. How should the Bible be understood?

Common answers from modernity have been that the bible is a manual for life, an answer book for every problem, and is completely historically and scientifically accurate. In other words, the bible is like a text book, where you can go to any section and receive training on some subject. Post-modernity has gone the opposite direction. Lately it has become more common for some to view the bible as just a story book. The stories may have good moral lessons, but most of the stories are not likely to be true. People merely made them up in order to try and teach lessons or explain things they didn’t understand.

I differ from both of these opinions. In order to try and understand things, we are always Continue reading →

1. What is the Overarching Story Line of the Bible?

According to a friend’s blog, Brian McLaren poses 10 questions in his new book “A New Kind of Christianity”. I believe these questions are given as ones which are being asked by many who both claim Christianity and those who are questioning it. So I thought I would provide my thoughts. First, the questions:

1. What is the overarching story line of the Bible?
2. How should the Bible be understood?
3. Is God violent?
4. Who is Jesus and why is he important?
5. What is the Gospel?
6. What do we do about the church?
7. Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it?
8. Can we find a better way of viewing the future?
9. How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?
10. How can we translate our quest into Continue reading →

Why I’m not a Calvinist

Over time I’ve interacted with several groups which have a Calvinist bent. My interaction with these groups recently has lead me to the desire to write my thoughts concerning the subject. To be clear, while I have done a fair amount of reading, I have not done a specific in depth study of Calvinism. My perspective is based on the general teaching and my personal experience with groups who are generally Calvinist. In other words, my take will not necessarily be a deep theological debate so much as a reflection on Calvinism as I’ve observed it in practice.

Calvinist theology is most known for its belief in predestination, and many people aren’t aware of there being anything more to it. However as I understand it, predestination isn’t even Continue reading →

Approaching Theology

I have observed that there are a couple of different possible approaches to building one’s theology. One approach is often taken by those who likely have the gift of teaching, those who love to really dig deep into the bible and study as much as they can about God. The bible is taken more as a text book, and is analyzed down to an atomic level. From there a belief structure is pieced together in a very logical way. The elements are woven together in a very precise manner, the way computer program or legal argument might be written. It is very technical and detail oriented; everything must be exactly determined and precisely placed in the framework. In the end, out of the laboratory, is created a systematic theology. Since it was created in Continue reading →

Molding People to Church or Church to People?

There is a large variety of people out there. People aren’t made in a cookie-cutter fashion and don’t fit neatly into clearly defined molds. People often don’t fit into a box (and most don’t like others trying to put them in one). People don’t like being restricted from being free. People don’t want to be judged based on a stereotype or without people knowing the situation they’re in. Now especially when you begin talking about larger groups of people, they aren’t all going to fit in the same box.

So if church is supposed to be about people—if it is supposed to be the people—then what is the best model for church? Is it to have a large, formal, rigid structure? Should we have positions and roles that we need filled, and then just Continue reading →

The Lord’s Prayer – Modern Paraphrase

Father, you are father of us all, and above us all.
Your are so incredible, people should be in awe at the mere mention of your name.
We want to see your nation established here, your desires to become reality in our world.
Provide for our needs today.
Forgive us for our less than perfect actions, just as we have forgiven those who have wronged us.
Guide our lives away from situations in which we may be tempted to do wrong, and protect us from harm.

I am aware of the responsibility which is assumed when attempting to interpret and paraphrase a portion of scripture as I have. In doing so, a person is essence making a statement that they believe they understand what the original intent and meaning were. For example, in this Continue reading →

The Lord’s Prayer Commentary 6

6. “Guide our lives away from situations in which we may be tempted to do wrong, and protect us from harm.”

* Evil is being wronged and/or doing wrong. The prayer closes with us praying for God to keep us from being on either side of wrong doing. We know that there is still much evil happening in our world, but we must seek to not be involved in it. When we do ministry, we are likely putting ourselves in increased danger, and we ask God to provide his protection over our lives.

The Lord’s Prayer Commentary 5

5. “Forgive us for our less than perfect actions, just as we have forgiven those who have wronged us.”

* We often try to minimize, excuse and/or justify our less than perfect actions, but as Jesus teaches in the previous part of the “Sermon on the Mount”, none of us are good enough for God’s standard. Therefore, we are all in need of God’s forgiveness. This ought to keep us humble, reminding us that we are not so much better than others, that we have room to judge and condemn them as being worse than we are. (This doesn’t negate recognizing sin and exhorting each other to abstain from it.)

* Amazingly, the second part of this verse simply assumes that we have forgiven everyone whom we may have had something against. I don’t believe Continue reading →