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discipleship missional

On Distorting Sex, Marriage, the Gospel (Live Q&A w/ Dr. Beth Felker Jones)

Like Jesus, we need to overturn the tables of those peddling gender hierarchies within the temple of our bodies.

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Love Recent Posts

Enemy Love as Forgiveness; or, Unsystematic Thought’s on God’s Love #6

Jesus breaks the “in group” bias of forgiveness for those like us and the “out group” fault-finding of those others.   In the presence of an enemy, will we… • Attack, or attune?• Escalate, or empathize?• War, or reconcile? It is clear how God responded… “While we enemies, we were reconciled to God through the […]

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Atonement

What We Get Wrong About the Blood of Jesus

While it might seem gross and barbaric, all Christians confess that salvation is through the blood of Jesus (Eph. 1:7). But what does that really mean? Does God demand death? Is the blood a symbol of something else? Does it speak of a price paid? Or a gift given? And what is this price? This […]

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Faith Gospel

Haunted House or War Zone: Does God Test Our Faith?

Now that we are saved, why aren’t things awesome all the time?  Why isn’t life one continuous ascent into the perfect life with God? And why are we told that God is testing us? As 1 Peter 1:6 says, In this [salvation] you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to […]

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Gospel missional Recent Posts Scripture

At-home-ment: Born Again in the Bible

We need to change our understanding of being born-again. And we need to change our emphasis on atonement. “You’re a ‘born-again Christian’, right?” I was asked this while at O’Mei, a fine dining Chinese restaurant I worked at through college. My first thought was, Aren’t all Christians born-again?  But I said, “I don’t know. What […]

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20 For 20 evangelical evangelicalism Gospel Jesus Christ

The Other Bridge Illustration: Visual Christus Victor

For all those visual learners who need to see it to understand it. This is the “Other Bridge Illustration.” And yes, I drew these while at Starbucks. (David Fitch and I did an entire podcast on this topic if you are interested.) The Original Bridge Illustration But first we must talk about the Original Bridge […]

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20 For 20 Recent Posts

4 Reasons Salvation is Coming…Not Going

Going Home Believe it or not, in eighth grade I wrote a song called “Home.” It was all about “going home” to heaven, finally being with God.  It was actually pretty good. In was an 8-bar blues song in the key of “C” with decent lyrics (for an 8th grader). I can still play it […]