The Jewish Messianic hope was often contaminated by a nationalist fervor that had God’s people thinking the Messiah was coming to take the country back for God from the unbelieving Gentiles in power, and bring swift judgment on the less zealous and insufficiently patriotic religious compromisers. … More When God’s Glory Appeared & Wept
The problem wasn’t simply that the mob displayed Christian symbols, but that they saw no contradiction between those symbols and their actions. The cross is a symbol of surrender and self-sacrifice; it represents Jesus’ relinquishing of power and his refusal to retaliate against his enemies. At the Capitol, however, the cross was erected next to a gallows and carried by those calling for their political enemies to be executed. … More January 6: A ‘Christian’ Insurrection?
The climax of every Asian food experience is breaking open that fortune cookie to gain new insight our own imminent futures. I keep waiting to open the one that says, “Your love for deep-fried Cream Cheese Puffs will shorten your life.” But my fortune this time was: YOU WILL BE A LION IN YOUR NEXT … More CrossRoad 5: Lamb Power in a Lion’s World
Last time I opened up a bit about the journey I took to have my thinking reshaped by the cross. Jesus slowly chipped away at some long held convictions and values I had been brought up with. The largest pill to swallow was learning to let Jesus’ strange commands have more sway than the common … More CrossRoad 2: Did the Disciples get it?
We’re spending the season of Lent in a sermon series called the “CrossRoad.” (Listen here.) In his book The Day the Revolution Began, N. T. Wright reminds us that the cross was more than a momentary transaction to deal with individual sins (though it is also that!). The story is much bigger and deeper. The cross launched a … More The Revolutionary CrossRoad
It seems hardly necessary to make an argument for the universally experienced suffering and injustice prevalent in the world. If pain really is God’s “megaphone to rouse a deaf world”, as C. S. Lewis argued, then the message is deafeningly clear and God might consider turning the volume down a bit. What then is the church’s appropriate response to the world’s injustice and suffering? … More A Case for a Cruciform Justice
Jeremy L. Berg 