I’ve been waiting eagerly to get to the parable of the prodigal son, as it is the richest and most profound teaching about the father heart of God in all of scripture. Everything up to this point has been leading to this teaching. Let’s start by reading it: ==============================Then He said: “A certain man had […]
Reading Jesus’ parables, it seems God is always losing things! “Now all the tax-gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” And He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, […]
Thoughts on this started to come to me after watching “Everything’s Fine” with Robert De Niro. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780511/ In it a widowed father tries to set up a reunion with his grown children, who all cancel. He longs for his children to come and eat together at his table, but it turns out one by one […]
I want to start by recapping the last post’s argument about this. I have to say that this is an important and seminal thought for me. In human experience we have a problem in that the idea of moral and desirable good are split – we are often wanting what we know is wrong, and […]
I want to delve into something today that may at first seem like nit-picky hair-splitting semantics. I think that if you will persevere and read to the end you will find that it is most profound and is deeply foundational to our idea of grace and the real motivation for living the Christian life. In […]
We’re still looking at the sermon on the mount. Read it here: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%205-7&version=NIV Let’s think about this from the perspective of a modern reader. Here is what might really go through someone’s head when they read this. “Poor in spirit … not sure what he means. Mourn … hope that never happens! Meek … I […]
I want to turn aside and take a look at Jesus’ famous teaching known to us as the sermon on the mount. It is one of the most penetrating explanations of God’s laws and ways ever given. I want to examine exactly what it says, and see how it fits with Paul’s teachings about the […]
Yes, you read the title right. After lots of dialog with people about God’s grace and forgiveness, who ask, “are you saying people can just SIN,” and, “what about hell and damnation?!” and such, I’ve decided to come out and admit it – I advocate evil. Since I believe in grace and mercy, that means […]
Someone posted this quote recently, and the conversation was relevant so I am posting it here. “It is a modern myth that you can know and love Him and not have a transformed life by Him.” I am posting some of my own responses:===========It is much more of a modern myth that the goal is […]
Yesterday I posted some things about discipline and grace and it set me to thinking about it a lot more. Here are some more thoughts. Grace vs. Discipline. If we are asked BY GOD to suffer in the flesh, to ‘arm ourselves with the same purpose (1Peter 4:1)’, how does that jive with the operations […]