In the Christian theology of history, the death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; hence all the roads of the future diverge.
Revelation 1:8, John 1:14, Matthew 5:3-9, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Acts 9:3-5
I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant...
One of the most fascinating features of the Bible is that it tells what is ahead for our world. Both Old and New Testaments contend that history is moving to a climax and that the sovereign God is in ...
[T]here are only two stories that make any difference—God’s story and the human story. We all are living out different versions of those two stories with an infinite number of variations. God’s story,...
In 1991, a yet-to-be-identified flea market enthusiast discovered a simple picture frame to his liking. Securing the purchase, the shopper returned home only to discover an ancient document hiding inc...
In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , Thomas Kelly describes the inward reality that governs the course of history: Out in front of us is the drama of men and of nations, seethi...
Colossians 1:16-17, John 1:1-4, Philippians 2:9-11, Matthew 27:54, Acts 9:1-6
Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every ...
When I was in Moscow in 1990 preaching at the Moscow Baptist Church, just blocks from the Kremlin, I told a packed crowd of worshipers that all through human history, as far back as recorded time and ...
John 1:14, Colossians 1:15-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Hebrews 1:1-3, Acts 4:12
In the Christian view, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ. If there is a God, we characters in his play have to hope that he put some information about himself in the play....
“In historical time, Christmas happened over two thousand years ago in Bethlehem; in theological time, Christmas happens now, in the mystery of God choosing to dwell within humankind, a mystery that t...
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, bu...
A friend of mine, lecturing in a theological college in Kenya, introduced his students to “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” This, he said, was a movement of thought and scholarship that in its ear...
Isaiah 9:6-7, Philippians 2:9-11, Mark 1:16-20, Matthew 11:28-30, John 10:10
H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...
Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...
My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...
If the Cross of Christ is anything to the mind, it is surely everything – the most profound reality and the sublimest mystery. One comes to realize that literally all the wealth and glory of the gospe...
Philippians 2:8, John 12:32, Isaiah 53:4-6, Luke 23:39-43, Hebrews 12:2
Another example struck me forcibly during the 2014 season of Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall in London. (The “Proms,” as they are known, make up a major annual festival, offering world-class mus...
1 Corinthians 1:18-25, Isaiah 53:3-5, John 12:32-33, Colossians 2:13-15, Mark 15:39
Precisely how a man nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago, who claimed to be the Son of God, came to signify reality, in contradiction to the sawdust men of destiny with their fraudulent wars and revoluti...
The witness of Christian history is that the ambitious need quiet hearts. We need ancient paths for our modern, busy lives that teach us to be settled with God in an unsettling world.
Matthew 22:39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 15:1-2, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:10, Acts 20:35, Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 58:6-7, Proverbs 19:17, Luke 10:30-37, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 25:40, Acts 11:29-30, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26
Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ...
Matthew 27:57-60, John 19:41-42, Luke 23:50-56, Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:14-15, Isaiah 53:9-11, 1 Corinthians 15:20-22
They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden the Romans setting a military guard lest there...
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good an...