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Sabbath-Keeping and Legalism
For the most part, contemporary Christians pay little attention to the Sabbath. We more or less know that the day came to reflect, in U.S. culture, the most stringent disciplinary faith of the Puritan... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 22:1-14
Kingdom Reversals This parable of Jesus is like the other two before it (cf., Matt. 21:28–32, 33–44) in that its focus is on kingdom reversals. Continuing the theme begun in Matt. 20:1–16 where the l... -
lectionary
20th Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Kingdom Reversals This parable of Jesus is like the other two before it (cf., Matt. 21:28–32, 33–44) in that its focus is on kingdom reversals. Continuing the theme begun in Ma... -
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Excluding Sinners is Excluding God
There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 21:23–32
Rumble in the Temple It is important to remember that Jesus’ confrontation with the “chief priests and elders” at Matt. 21:23–27 follows closely on the heels of His triumphal entry and Matthew’s vers... -
lectionary
18th Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Rumble in the Temple It is important to remember that Jesus’ confrontation with the “chief priests and elders” at Matt. 21:23–27 follows closely on the heels of His triumphal e... -
lectionary
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Preaching Commentary The teachings contained in this passage are, for my money, as difficult to preach as any lectionary text. Not only is each teaching difficult in its own right, but each has also... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with heart, soul, and m... -
lectionary
Ash Wednesday
AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with h... -
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The Heart of Christian Virtue
If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without l... -
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Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless. -
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This is salvation in the deeper and more spiritual sense of the Old Testament. . . . But even in the religion of the Law, . . . obedience to the revealed will of Yahweh is recognized as the supreme en... -
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Postmodernism (the thinking of our age) is fiercely antinomian (without law). It is admitted that people make mistakes, but the word ‘sin’ is seldom mentioned and the idea that we all sin against God ... -
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We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We... -
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Good vs. Bad Discipline
While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an... -
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[The decay of Logic results from an] untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not. -
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The Three Options
With a certain oversimplification we can trace easily enough the three options open to Jews in Jesus’ day. … First, the quietist and ultimately dualist option, taken by the writers of the Dead Sea Scr... -
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Family and property, then, were not for the ancient Jew simply what they are to the modern western world. Both carried religious and cultural significance far beyond personal, let alone “individual,” ... -
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Systems Can’t Fix Us
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... -
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An Eye for an Eye
Zaleusus flourished as king of the ancient Greek Locrians in about 500 B.C. His government over the Locrians was severe but just. In one of his decrees he forbade the use of wine unless it were prescr... -
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Practice is to Judaism…
Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity. That is not to say that Judaism doesn’t have dogma or doctrine. It is rather to say that for Jews, the essence of the thing is a doing, an action... -
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We do not therefore by faith make void the law, but rather establish it. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Exodus 20:1-17
Ancient lens What's the historical context? Covenant first These words spoken by God to the people of Israel were spelled out within the covenant-making process. God has promised to be with t... -
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The Most Radical Discipline
Solitude is the most radical of the disciplines for life in the spirit. In penal institutions, solitary confinement is used to break the strongest of wills. It is capable of this because it excludes i... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 5:21-37
The teachings contained in this passage are, for my money, as difficult to preach as any lectionary text. Not only is each teaching difficult in its own right, but each has also been used (and in some... -
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We fixate on sins of commission far too much. We practice holiness by subtraction-don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay. The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and... -
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All those who do not at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, d... -
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Interpretive strategies have gone through cycles
Interpretive strategies have gone through cycles of strict-constructionist (or Originalism) and broad-constructionist (or Living Constitution) perspectives. Originally the procedure of interpreting th... -
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A possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession. -
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The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor…Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.
![[The decay of Logic results from an]](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1709399610754-921b7a9ef3b7?ixid=M3w1NzU0OTZ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw0NXx8bG9naWN8ZW58MHwwfHx8MTcxMjA3NTI4Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&auto=compress&fit=crop&w=200&h=200)
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