“Christian worship is the declaration that God is creating a new humanity in Christ, and wherever that new humanity gathers, a new center is constituted, a new public square is established. We reject the ghetto-izing of the faith, which wants to worship God without actually creating a city . . . we also reject the …
Which Is Why They Don’t Make Sense Outside the Story
“The Ten Commandments begin with ‘once upon a time'” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 116).
What Happened Right After
“Virtually all the books of the New Testament have an expectant air about them. They are all waiting for something drastic that will happen soon, and not one of them even mentions the most cataclyismic event in Jewish history — the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — as being past. That event was the …
If the Curtain Went Up, Why Can’t We See Anything?
“It is indeed unfortunate that we by our sloth have made a revelation into one of the most obscure books of the Bible” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 107).
And Your Sun Will Go Down
[Discussing Matt. 24:29-31] “Everywhere there is similar ‘collapsing solar system’ imagery in the Old Testament (see Ezek. 32:7; Amos 8:9; and Joel 2:28-32), the reference is always to the same thing — the destruction of nations and cities. There is no scriptural reason to handle such passages differently when they are quoted in the New …
Always a Bright Side
“What is the meaning of ”one is taken and the other left’? This is commonly thought to refer to the rapture — one taken up into heaven, and the other left on earth to kick himself for not praying the sinner’s prayer when he had a chance. On the bright side, there will be a …
Church History as Approaching Spring
“Within one generation, Jesus says the these signs will bud, and the summer (not winter) will be near. He reinforces His words with a strong word — heaven and earth might fold, but His words, never. And everything He said did come to pass within the course of one generation. Far from being an embarrassingly …
The End, Sure, But of What?
“Scoffers have frequently seized on this point, thinking that Christ was obviously wrong about when the end of the world would be. But the problem is that He was not talking about the end of the world at all. He was not asked about the end of the space/time continuum. He was asked about the …
Where the Hope Resides
“We see that the engine which drives this optimistic hope is not some falsely optimistic view of human nature, but rather confidence in the efficacy of the gospel to overcome depraved human nature. In the gospel, God deals with sin” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 98).
Taking Note
“I also discovered the ‘favorite’ books of the New Testament writers. More often quoted than anything else were Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms and Isaiah” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 96).