bible and theology on Personal Transformation

The transformation from water to wine is of course meant by John to signify the effect that Jesus can have, can still have today, on people’s lives.  He came, as he says later, that we might have life...

Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift or imposition.

Does reading the Bible really change us? Does it have the ability, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to shape and form our characters? That's what The Center for Bible Engagement wanted to fin...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Historical Clue The superscript of Psalm 51 gives us a historical clue about the composition of this Psalm, “A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophe...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

In her book Confessions of a Beginning Theologian , Elouise Renich Fraser discusses how crucial it has been to listen to her body throughout her personal and theological growth. My body, once...

Walter Brueggemann writes that the movement of the psalms is from orientation to disorientation and then to new orientation. The psalms give us a language for transformation in desert spaces: we move ...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

The new life is not a matter of mere moral reformation, but of spiritual transformation.

This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Ga...

The Creed was the focused, worshipful expression of people whose lives had been totally transformed by the Bible and by the risen Jesus Christ. The Creed’s words are not windows with the shutters pull...

Pilgrimage is a marinating process. The Bible is bursting with people who traveled to places of retreat where God seasoned and tenderized them, preparing them to take the next step of the journey. Mos...

In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ...

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.

So while conversion is the most important step in the journey, involving a fundamental change in our identity, life transformation is the end goal.

The caterpillar must yield up the life it knows and submit to the mystery of interior transformation. It emerges from the process transfigured, with wings that give it freedom to fly. . .. A rule of lif...

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

Shalom is turbocharged peace, full-spectrum peace, peace amplified. It involves the transformation of the personal, social and structural dimensions of life. Shalom includes human flourishing in all d...

The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us. Some churches give people the idea that the only way to transformation is knowledge. There is an ass...

The leading causes of death are self-inflicted — side effects of tobacco, obesity, alcohol, sexually transmitted disease, drugs, and violence. We need a transformation. We need the kind of personal an...

There is an immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something. … Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely. This is what the apost...

Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has bee...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

The truth about significant soul transformation is this—change is possible, but it is harder than we want and takes longer than we expect…. real change requires more than willpower and easy, simple st...

How do you choose what to preach on any given Sunday? Are you a… Lectionary Preacher ? Occasional use of the lectionary, select seasonal use of the lectionary, or full-throttle every Sunday and any...

In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...

Loving God, you love us so much that you invite us to a life of transformation. You call us to live outside ourselves, and to follow you more faithfully with each day that passes. We confess to you th...

Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our...

You've got to admit you're broken before you can be made whole.

Gracious Lord, like Nicodemus, we come to the word with many questions. Like the Pharisees, we can be captivated by correctness, intent on right answers. As we turn to your word, Spirit of God, do not...