Tag: Jesus

Prepare This reading begins with a question about the afterlife from the Sadducees, a group of leaders who did not believe in the resurrection. This is important to note because the question is not really about the resurrection at all, but about trapping Jesus. The Sadducees want him to give an answer that somehow “convicts” him. Keep in mind that this gospel lesson comes just one chapter after Jesus has made his final entry into Jerusalem, what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. So this conversation takes place sometime between Sunday and Thursday, before the Last Supper. To clarify the question,…

Being right about Jesus and the triune God isn’t like being right about a political platform or position. When we do our due diligence to be right about various and contingent political platforms and positions, we must make judgments, with the Lord’s help. But being right about Jesus isn’t ultimately based on our judgments and positions, per se. That is to say: to be right about who Jesus and the triune God are has nothing to do with us. When a person arrives at a saving knowledge of God in Christ it isn’t based on judgments and verity; it is…

Given what’s going on with Israel and Iran I jotted down some thoughts (elsewhere online) on Israel and how ethnic Israel continues to relate to the Man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ. There is a right-wing movement among some so-called MAGA people who are highly antisemitic, or we could more accurately say: supersessionist. They have bought into the old rhetoric that Israel as a nation ceased to exist in 70AD, never to reunite again. But her ethnicity has always been vouchsafed in the Man from Nazareth (see Jeremiah 31). Her ethnicity transcends itself in its purpose as the Messiah bearer for…

Interesting, as Jesus becomes human for us, and fully obeys and keeps the Torah (Law) for us, at the same time, because He is for us, He dies as if He hadn’t kept the Law for us, cursed, hung on a tree. And yet because He remained perfectly complete to the Law for us, all the way to suffering the consequences of no-Law-keeping, He is understood as simultaneously both the reprobate and elect of God for us in His consubstantial nature as fully God and fully Man for the world. There is a double election—an election for our reprobation and…

I take this to be something of a paraphrase of John 3:16 by Karl Barth (even though he doesn’t identify it as such, explicitly): Basically, the doctrine of the concursus [trans. accompanying] must be as follows. God, the only true God, so loved the world in His election of grace that in fulfilment of the covenant of grace instituted at the creation He willed to become a creature, and did in fact become a creature, in order to be its Saviour. And this same God accepts the creature even apart from the history of the covenant and its fulfilment. He…

Salvation. God is salvation. Jesus is God. Jesus is salvation. Jesus is both the object and subject of salvation; both the electing God, and elected human. Jesus is with and for us and in us before we are in Him. Jesus first became human that we might become human in Him. Jesus is the Godward to human and humanward to God movement of the triune life for the world; even as He is, without the world. Jesus, in the triune life, freely chose to not be God without us, but with us. Jesus was and is, first, Deus incarnandus (the…

I shared the following sketch, diatribe of sorts, on X just yesterday. A so-called Theobro (all bro no Theo) reshared it for his friend group, and they went to town. Memeing me galore. Dismissing me out of hand from their dilettantism. Not recognizing that I was leaving space for evangelizing, so to speak, even the philosophers; albeit in non-correlating ways. I.e., taking the philosophers’ respective grammars and language bags, and retexting them in a way that they are deployed in service of the King; insofar that that is possible or advisable. These guys are all bark and no theological bite….

Jon Fry, Champaign-Urbana, IL Warm-up Questions How do you pass the time while traveling? What are your favorite traveling games/activities with friends or family? Weird Internet Outage A few weeks ago my newsfeed was blowing up with articles from medical professionals suggesting that abstaining from in-flight entertainment, food, drink, and sleep, on long flights was a bad decision. This was in response to folks on TikTok posting their record setting performances on multi-hour flights and boasting about their mental stamina. Numerous doctors, self-help professionals, and meditation specialists began chiming in with their two cents on the trend. Most experts agree that…

Christians don’t believe in a chain of being between God and the world. Christians believe that God in-breaks into the world with irruption that this world could never produce. Without God’s gracious and free election to invade this world, this humanity, we would have no access into God’s inner life; which is eternal life. The Christian believes in a life that was first set for them in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ; indeed, a life, a Deus incarnandus (‘God to be incarnate’), that was there ever before this world was this world. Deus incarnatus (‘God incarnate’) is humanity’s only…

“Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. 19 He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. 20 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. 21     In his name the nations will put their hope.” –Mathew 12.18-21 If, ten years ago, you had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with…