He had been her doctor for over 25 years. He knew everything about her social history and her medical problems. In fact, he was not only her healthcare provider, but over the years, he had even become a friend. This is why it caught him completely off-guard when she answered “Yes” to his question. You see, he had just attended a medical training over the weekend about domestic violence. He had learned that it was much more prevalent than he’d actually realized. That week, he’d decided he would begin asking each and every one of his patients about their experience with domestic violence. “Are you in a relationship where you are being physically hurt by your partner?” “Yes,” she answered. Her husband of 30 years had been physically abusing her. He looked at her with surprise. “Darlene….why o...

“I get fed there” is one of the classic “Christianese” phrases that puzzle outsiders. “Are you referring to a buffet?” they might ask. For many who use this phrase, a rough translation typically means something like: “I get my spiritual energy boost every Sunday to help get me from Monday to Saturday.” Joining other believers each Sunday in singing, praying, and hearing teaching from God’s Word produces healthy spiritual nourishment. “As a deer pants for flowing streams,”writes the Psalmist, “so pants my soul for you, O God (Psalm 42:1).”We become spiritually parched and famished with the hardships of life in a fallen world, and the Word of God refreshes our souls. For the most part, however, I’ve heard this phrase used in ways that are unhealthy. I’ll ask someone how church is going, and ...

When people want to harp on the impractical nature of theology, there’s one “go to” analogy that shows up more than any other: the medieval debate about how many angels can dance on the point of a needle. After all, could there be a better example of theological time wasting? Who really cares? Even if we knew the answer, would it help us feed starving children? Would we be better prepared to share the gospel? Would it accomplish anything useful? I won’t debate that theologians are sometimes be guilty of wasting time on unimportant matters. But this question may not illustrate what we think. Rather than showing how impractical theology can be, it may be a better illustration of something I talked about in a related post. Theology seeks to help us understand a complex universe created by an ...

The resurrection of Jesus (alongside his crucifixion) is the central historical event in the Christian faith. Without the resurrection there would be no Christianity. “If Christ has not been raised,” wrote St. Paul, “then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). I am a Christian because I believe in the resurrection. I am convinced that after dying a violent death on a Roman cross on a Friday afternoon in 30 A.D., Jesus of Nazareth came back to life and emerged from the tomb on Sunday morning. This is not easy to believe. But if it is true, it is the most pivotal event in human history. Much has been written in defense of Jesus’ resurrection, the most thorough and convincing book being N. T. Wright’s massive 800-page volume, The Resurrection of the Son of ...

In the late 1990s, a group of scholars assembled to evaluate whether Jesus actually said the things attributed to him by the Gospel writers. Although they employed remarkably subjective criteria in their evaluation of Scripture, members of the self-appointed “Jesus Seminar” were widely quoted by the media as authorities on the Christian faith. Marcus Borg, a Jesus Seminar leader, said this of Christ’s resurrection: “As a child, I took it for granted that Easter meant that Jesus literally rose from the dead. I now see Easter very differently. For me, it is irrelevant whether or not the tomb was empty. Whether Easter involved something remarkable happening to the physical body of Jesus is irrelevant.”1 As a child, Borg was right. As an adult—though considered a spokesman for Christianity—he ...

The Meaning of the Cross What do the cross and resurrection mean for us? First, let’s look at the cross. Historically, Christians use seven major words to summarize the Bible‘s teaching on what happened when Jesus died. They help us to understand how spiritually poor we are by nature and how rich we can become by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. Substitution The basic meaning of the word is very straightforward and in relation to the death of Jesus is extremely important. This comes across powerfully when we read that ‘Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God’ (1 Peter 1:18, NIV, emphasis added). As another New Testament writer puts it, ‘He laid down his life for us’ (1 John 1:16, emphasis added). The Bible tell...

As a boy I spent a lot of time in my dad’s truck— a mobile office/workshop that smelled of oil, metal, and Doublemint gum. He would take me with him to various jobs, and I went as his assistant. This usually meant I carried his tools and he installed water heaters or retiled bathrooms. But the truck. That’s where we talked in depth about life. I had a lot of questions and he had a lot of thoughts. In the truck was where I thought out loud with my dad and pondered his wisdom. In light of Father’s Day, I wanted to share four pieces of fatherly wisdom that he passed on to me. 1.    Don’t Worry About What Others Think Like most kids I was very concerned with how others saw me. The pervading question in my mind was, “Am I cool?”I remember sitting in the truck on a hot summer day ...