luke on Jesus' Example

T. S. Eliot once described the current human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. The way of Jesus tells us, by contrast, that any number of syste...

Many of us may have wondered what types of prayers Jesus would have prayed during his time on planet earth. In his book Praying with the Church , Scot McKnight notes that Jesus and his disciples,...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? OT Foreshadowing While Luke’s account of the procurement of the donkey on which Jesus rides into Jerusalem has no precedent in the Hebr...

Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us.  …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...

Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote in his classic study Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity that the term stigma originated with the ancient Greeks, roughly during Jesus’ tim...

Jesus’ actions, in and of themselves, often make no sense unless we see them as responses to some hidden invitation—an invitation received from time spent alone with his Father. When Jesus was interru...

The Paradox of Lent | AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? OT Foreshadowing While Luke’s account of the procurement of the donkey on which Jesus rides int...

Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...

Reflection We all are aware of cultures that have a hierarchy—a pecking order. The elite and the hoi polloi. The acceptable and the unacceptable. In such cultures, the hierarchy determines the role. ...

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...

O Lord Jesus Christ, enthroned in the majesty of heaven, who, when you came forth from God, did make yourself one that serves: We adore you because you did lay aside the garment of your glory, and clo...

O God, your mercy is infinite and in your will is our peace. We learn your way so slowly; we choose your will so reluctantly. In this season of learning the limit­lessness of your love, help us throug...

Humble. Before Jesus, almost no pagan author had used “humble” as a compliment. Yet the events of Christmas point inescapably to what seems like an oxymoron: a humble God. The God who came to earth ca...

In these acts of love Jesus created a scandal for devout, religious Palestinian Jews. The absolutely unpardonable thing was not his concern for the sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed . . . ...