“So therefore let us too run up to the upward path, so that we may come with Isaiah to the pinnacle of hope, and see from a vantage-point those good things which the Word shews to those who accompany him to the height.”–Gregory of Nyssa[1] When Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) described the first two verses of Matt 5 as a “brief…
“[W]e inevitably interpret the Sermon on the Mount for our own time and place. We are neither ancient Jews nor ancient Christians. We do not live within the first-century world of Jesus or Matthew or share in their culture or participate in their forms of government. We live rather in the age of capitalism, democracy, secularization, and technology—modern realities that…
Allow me to take stock of where we are. To help us get our bearings, I am introducing some key “starting points” for understanding the Sermon on the Mount. First we saw that happiness is found in Jesus Christ, but involves a radically different way of seeing the world (and ourselves). Christ came to offer abundant life–the life of the…
Christian claim #9: “He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end.” “When Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die.” The man who penned these words, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a preacher in Germany during the years of Adolf Hitler. He took the calling of Christ seriously,…
Christian claim #7: “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” I have long appreciated this fascinating quote from Reinhold Niebuhr: Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must…
Healthy Theology is only available if we are willing to grow and to hear things that challenge our thinking, and open our hearts. This means that a lover of God, and student of Scripture, has an open attitude toward learning. The word disciple literally means learner; so when we are called to be disciples, we are actually being asked to…