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Holy Scripture — a beautiful description by NT Wright
“Perhaps, indeed, that is what “holy scripture” really is — not a calm, serene list of truths to be learned or commands to be obeyed, but a jagged book that forces you to grow up in your thinking as you grapple with it.” — NT Wright, Paul: A Biography My life has been one of grappling. I wanted certitude and…
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Our misunderstanding of salvation
I have been rekindled in my thoughts concerning “salvation” the past few years. We have such a truncated version of “gospel” that we try to keep it reduced to something like, “Jesus came to save you so when you repent you can know you go to heaven when you die.”
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The “Second Coming” and what we may not want
I am reading NT Wright’s biography on the Apostle Paul currently and once again in awe of Wright’s grasp of 1st Century Judaism. He talks about the conversion of Saul and walks the reader through what “preaching” really was in that day (which is far different from what we have in our minds today), along with expectation and LACK of…
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From fishermen to shepherds
When I first came into ministry it was the days of leadership development under guys like John Maxwell. There was the mantra: “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
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Setting the world right
“… evangelism, which will flourish best if the church is giving itself to works of justice (putting things to rights in the community) and works of beauty (highlighting the glory of creation and the glory yet to be revealed): evangelism will always come as a surprise. You mean there is more? There is a new world, and it has already…
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I am but a shadow of my future self
How I live now matters. My body matters. My mind matters. It is not discarded in the future, so I can treat my current life any way I want. Current gleanings from NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope: I am but a shadow of my future self. How I love now matters. What we do in the present matters. It…
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Heaven and hell isn’t the ultimate question
If I could get every American conservative Christian to read Surprised by Hope, it would be mandatory reading. Wright forces my thinking away from what I thought was the ultimate question: Who is going to heaven or hell? (And, did God send them there or did humans choose?) Maybe we’re asking wrong questions, and this is what stirs me reading…
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Overcoming political ideologies BECAUSE Jesus is Lord
N.T. Wright poses this question: “What would happen if we were to take seriously our stated belief that Jesus Christ is already the Lord of the world and that at his name, one day, every knee would bow?”
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Living in the power of the beautiful kingdom of God
One of the great lessons I’ve carried from NT Wright is to see heaven and earth in a far different relationship than what I believed growing up. Heaven is not “up there” and earth is not “down here.” They are two different dimensions of God’s good creation.
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Notes on redemption
A few notes jotted down on the plan of redemption from NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope. Redemption isn’t scrapping what’s there and starting from a clean slate. When I read passages talking about a “new heaven and new earth” that was the mentality I had. The old earth (where we live currently) would be burned up and something new…
Tag: NT Wright
