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Let music and praise fill your heart
Paul doesn’t see these hymns and songs as simply decorative, a pleasant aural embroidery around Christian faith and practice. Singing, whether aloud or in your heart, was, he thought, an excellent way of actually practising the faith. If you don’t want your garden to grow weeds, one of the best ways is to keep it well stocked with strong, sturdy…
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Jesus and the Powers, Part 8
The final chapters in the book, Jesus and the Powers, are a struggle for me. Chapter 7 is the struggle. Chapter 8 is the summary. The fact of the matter, for Wright and Bird, is that government of some form is necessary. I can’t disagree. For all the shouting people do about corrupt government (on the “right” or the “left”),…
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Jesus and the Powers, Part 7
There are governments to resist. We wrestle with the need to submit to a point and then how to resist when there are violations of conscience and crossing allegiances, but then there is a need to understand there are things to resist. The how is tricky, and it takes the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit. This isn’t about…
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Jesus and the Powers, Part 6
It’s been a week without writing mainly because I’ve been absorbing the political shooting from last week and then seeing how it might play out in the Republican National Convention. Along with that was preparation for this coming week’s book study group on Jesus and the Powers. It’s been a week of absorbing and reflecting.
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Jesus and the Powers, Part 3
Notes from NT Wright and Michael Bird’s, Jesus and the Powers. The problem of political power is rooted in the beginning. In creation. God set humanity in place to bring order. The problem is humanity keeps getting in their own way. The history of the Old Testament leaves us in a quandary:
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Jesus and the Powers, Part 2
NT Wright and Michael Bird don’t deny the certain benefits of Christendom, but they also dive into the destructive use of power in that time period as well. We have to reach for something more.
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The power of Pentecost — the sign of tongues
NT Wright on the power of the Holy Spirit and the sign of speaking in tongues: Some people try to sweep ‘tongues’ aside as if it was a peculiar thing which happened early on and which, fortunately, doesn’t need to happen any more. Sometimes this is combined with a sense of the need to control the emotions, both one’s own…
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The deep joy of God
I am working on synthesizing some thoughts from two books: The Spirit of Our Politics by Michael Wear and Jesus and the Powers by NT Wright and Michael Bird. There are three areas I am covering to put together some thoughts on how we are are live as Christians in America. (NOT American Christians. Note the difference.) There are the…
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Political and spiritual involvement
One of the words we toss around without understanding the definition is “secular.” When it comes to being in the public square, it is a misunderstood (and abused) word. In Jesus and the Powers, Wright and Bird draw a clear picture of true secularism, where government is useful to allow religious voices to be heard but not dominating, and non-religious…
Tag: NT Wright
