If all the Beatitudes told Jesus’ followers to do was be nice to everyone all the time, it would be hard to understand that as a revolutionary sentiment that would result in condemnation and crucifixion. The Beatitudes are a declaration about the nature of God’s new creation order, an order that God himself has inaugurated. …
The primacy of following Jesus creates relationships with others who follow Jesus. Following Jesus informs shared ethical and moral frameworks as we live in community with other believers. It is following Jesus that gives rise to our ethical and moral frameworks and our desire to live them. Those who do not follow Jesus will not …
Doctrine is a helpful servant, but an awful master. Which is to say that: knowledge of the Biblical truth that salvation flows from a relationship with Jesus is not the same as an actual relationship with Jesus. And in the Gospel accounts, the relationship led to the knowledge, because through the relationship came the revelation …
Jesus bids his disciples to follow him. This invokes life as a journey, imparts an understanding of human nature, and provides a vision of human destiny that culminates in ultimate community. Jesus bids his disciples to follow him while living in cultures that instead are inwardly framed on the what is termed freedom and increasingly …
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