Posts Tagged ‘Jesus’

Most of us assume that certainty is an unqualified good.  Who wouldn’t want to be sure that they’ve chosen the right spouse, job or college?  Nevertheless, we need to question closely the desire for certainty.  What do we mean by certainty?  Are their different legitimate levels of certainty?  Can we ask to have certainty in every circumstance?  A false step here can lead to consequences as dire and diverse as despair, inability to act, and even mass murder. Read the rest of this entry »

            Have you ever been troubled by the fact that Christians fervently pray for a parking spot at a crowded mall on December 24^th but don’t pray for those suffering under oppression in North Korea?  Worse yet, maybe that describes your prayer life.  If so, Psalm 2 is for you. Read the rest of this entry »

            In the first of this series, “Recognizing the Risen Lord,” I argued that the earliest disciples recognized Jesus as the risen Lord by identifying him with the crucified Christ.  I concluded that the fact that the risen Lord is the crucified Christ is a truth so radical that it challenges human religion, reason and politics and thus calls for a change in the human heart that only can come about by God’s grace.  In this post I want to discuss the need for God’s grace to affirm that the risen Lord is the crucified Christ.  The discussion will again center on Luke 24. Read the rest of this entry »

            How did the first disciples of Jesus recognize him as the risen Lord?  The answer is by recognizing him as the crucified Christ.  The question is not an inconsequential detail of biblical trivia.  The devil is in the details and so, not infrequently, is the truth.  Nor is the answer so obvious that there is no need to mention it.  The profound is often hidden in the obvious.  Both question and answer lead us to the heart of the Christian faith and life. Read the rest of this entry »

            Contrary to the novel and film of this name, both of which I only know by reading a written summary, the last temptation of Jesus was not to live a normal human life.  Even the devil knows that it went much deeper than that. As the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the crucifixion shows, Jesus was tempted with regard to his identity as the Son of God. Read the rest of this entry »