Jesus Creed

Friends, here is tomorrow’s sermon. The text is John 14:15-24. You are welcome to comment on it, critique it, question it, ignore it. We are installing new AV equipment in our church next week and I think I may soon have the ability to do podcasts. We shall see. [...]

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz

Belgium students know how to blow off some steam. Here are 1,500 students breaking a record of dropping a mint sweet (Mentos) into a Coke (who knew there was such a record to be broken???)

One Mind

This past Sunday’s message from Rob Bell is a must listen for the church of today. You can listen for free here: Mars Hill Teachings.
The text is Philippians 2:1-2, which reads: If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and [...]

Waging War with Pacifism

I have been wrestling for quite some time now over the Christians role in this world, specifically how that role relates to our posture towards violence and war. I have become increasingly convinced that the way of Christ is not compatible with war but with pacifism. To be clear, pacifism does not mean [...]

Surprised by Hope, Chapter 3

Surprised by Hope, Chapter Three: Early Christian Hope in its Historical Setting
What this chapter is about: After examining what beliefs exist in the wider non-Christian world and also in the Church about resurrection and life after death, Wright is now going to dive into the historical record and give us a look at what the [...]

Three Weeks and Counting!!

Below is a post from my wife on our adoption blog, which you can find here: Hearts of Hope. I think my wife is a gifted writer and she is passionate about our children. Below is some of her thoughts about the day we meet our new gifts from God….less than three [...]

The Cost of Discipleship

Yeah, I’m stealing from Bonhoeffer. The text for the sermon tomorrow comes from Acts 7:55-60 and John 14:1-14. The Acts passage is the story of Stephen being stoned and in a beautiful allusion to Christ calls out forgiveness for his attackers with his last breath. John begins with Jesus’ last discourse before [...]

Living Scriptures

I’m currently working on an exegesis of Acts 15, focusing primarily on the Apostolic Decree sent out by the Jerusalem Council. My research has led me down various paths and fortunately they are for the most part fascinating. In a compilation of essays on Acts, E.J Epp does a revised write-up of his [...]

The Triviality of Location

I have really been enjoying learning from Dr. Ellen Davis (OT scholar here at Duke). Her new book that we as a class have had first go at (its not yet published) is Scripture, Culture, Agriculture and is her reflections on how vastly the Old Testament speaks of land and the theology surrounding [...]

Surprised by Hope: 2.2

Sorry for the delay in getting the second part of chapter 2 out. Finals are fast approaching and I have a number of papers to get written by next week (not to mention I STILL have painting left to do!) Your comments on this and the other sections are welcomed and appreciated. One [...]

My Aspiring Theologian…

Every day I find my youngest son, Brody, rearranging my library. Both my boys love books, but I caught Brody this morning leafing through several of my books. If you are interested in Brody’s current reading list it appears to include The Church in Emerging Culture edited by Leonard Sweet and The Young [...]

The Sword of Christ

This morning on my way to Duke I listened to a message given by Donald Miller on Oct. 26, 2006 called Incarnational Gospel. You can download it for free at the link provided.
Everytime I hear Don speak I am challenged, and this was no different. It was interesting that [...]

MLK

Thanks to my friend Rita I learned about the History Channel’s showing of “King,” a 2 hour program done by Tom Brokaw on the life of MLK. This really was an excellent piece of historical journalism interspersed with great sound bites and comments from friends and family, one being his surviving son, Martin Luther [...]

Jesus Is At the Table

Text: Luke 24:13-35
Luke is such a masterful story teller that on one level you read this and then want to just shut up. “Preacher, hush,” you might be thinking, “don’t ruin this.” But I’m just a first year Divinity student, and at Duke of all places – a school that lives and dies [...]

Kingdom Invasion

I was listening to an interview with Brian McLaren held at Washington’s National Cathedral the other day and wrote down a few lines and thoughts that struck me.
One of the things he said reminded me of N.T. Wright’s book that I am working through currently. It has to do with the pervasive [...]

IT’S OFFICIAL!!!!

After months of waiting and paperwork and phone calls and emails we are as of today the official parents of Hideat and Fanuel!! My daughter is 4 years old and her brother, my son, is 3. Below are some pictures of them. We have not been allowed for legal reasons to post [...]

What’s Your Cyrus?

Yesterday in class we were exegeting Isaiah 44&45 and working with the thesis that redemption is grounded in creation (an interesting thesis if nothing else). It is fascinating Cyrus, king of the Persians is called “my shepherd” by God in 44:28 and also God’s “anointed” in 45:1. This would no doubt offend [...]

My Excuse

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I know I said the next part of chapter 2 (Surprised by Hope) would be up already but I as you can see by this picture I have been busy. We just received word that the 2 kids we are adopting from Ethiopia are officially ours!! We made it through court in Ethiopia [...]

Scripture: Wisdom as Antidote to Sloth

This is an essay I wrote last week for my Theology of the Land class. Those who are of the emergent variety will like the nod to Stanley Grenz, I’m sure. I would love to hear anyone’s comments on this as it is a subject I have been mulling over for some time. [...]