opinions and musings

Here is a good exercise for my fellow followers of Jesus.  Can we summarize the message of the entire Bible in 200 words or less?  This is great to be able to do when sharing your faith with someone who is not a believer in Jesus.  The message of Jesus really doesn't make much sense when it is presented out of context.  We must present the saving work of Christ in the context of the overall story of Israel and in the context of the God who created the physical universe and has always loved humanity. Here is my attempt at this: "The Bible tells the story of God's journey with mankind as He reveals Himself as a Father who delights in his good creation and in humanity.   He called out a people to Himself called Israel - the descendants of a Jewish man named Jacob.  He revealed Himself in a special way to this group of people. They became His representatives in the earth.  The story reaches its climax when God Himself comes to earth in the form of t...

Within evangelical Christian circles these days I often hear the statement that “time is short – we are in the last days you know!”    Some Christians spend a great deal of time studying “end time prophecy” and looking for “signs of the end” in current events and international politics.   I would like to present a refreshing, Biblical alternative to all of that.    Last Days                           My proposal is that the term “last days” as it was used by the New Testament writers referred to the last days of the Old Covenant age, and that age ended in 70 AD with the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem by the Roman legions.   If this is true then we do not need to worry about the great tribulation, the anti-christ, the “mark of the beast”, etc. because all of those prophetic elements were fulfilled nearly 2000 y...

4th century fresco of Saint Paul Have you ever noticed that the message of Paul in the letters to the churches is somewhat different from the message of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels?   Paul focuses on the theme of justification – how a person is declared righteous before God.    Jesus on the other hand never mentions justification in his teaching.   Paul also focuses on the contrast between law and grace.   Jesus really doesn’t deal with that in his teachings. Jesus’ message centers on the coming of the Kingdom of God and the attributes and qualities of life in that Kingdom. I believe that God in his wisdom gave Jesus and Paul two different messages to proclaim.   Jesus was sent to announce the coming Kingdom of God and to offer his life as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.    Paul was given a different message.   God revealed to him the full significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus and he was given the ta...

In our first “Following Jesus” lesson we looked at an overview of the New Testament and what it means for someone to follow Jesus.   Now in this second lesson we will look at why someone would want to follow Jesus.   We’ll also get into a bit more of the practical day to day aspects of following Jesus. The most important thing to know about following Jesus is that Jesus is a living person.   He has feelings, thoughts and dreams.   We humans have been created in his likeness so that’s why we have feelings, thoughts, desires and dreams.   We were created to have a relationship with this amazing Creator who has revealed himself to us in the Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth.   Jesus died a criminal's death to free us from our self-centeredness (sin) and three days later He rose again from the dead.  He is alive forever.  Now He offers us His own Divine life to live inside of us.   The greatest reason to follow Jesus is to enter into an...