Worldview and Perspective on God's Story

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Author

Boris Cyrulnik

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All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story.

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Author

Lee Eisenberg

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From [age three] on out, stories will not only entertain you, they will explain you to others and to yourself.

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Deus ex machina

Author

Casey Clark

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Scripture

Romans 5:1-11

While there are an infinite number of ways for a movie to fall short, a common complaint is if the inciting incident of the drama is solved in a way that comes out of nowhere, even breaking the logic ...

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From the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

Isaiah 25:8, 1 Corinthians 15:52-53, Revelation 21:1-4, Revelation 22:1-5, Philippians 3:20-21, Hebrews 13:14

The biblical narrative begins and ends at home. From the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem we are hardwired for place and for permanence, for rest and refuge, for presence and protection. We long fo...

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Comparing the Genesis Creation Account with their Neighbors

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:3, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 2:2-3, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:31

The Jews were not the only religious people in the ancient world. There were others, such as the Akkadians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and they had their own creation stories. When one compares the ...

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Story as Worldview and the Example of Passover

Author

N. T. Wright and Michael Bird

Keywords

Stories, after all, are one of the most basic modes of human life and are a characteristic expression of worldview. Human life is constituted by a series of stories, implicit and explicit, that makes ...

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Psalm 22 | Feeling Forsaken by God

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 22:, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Hebrews 2:12

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

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Ancient Cosmology

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

The cosmology of the ancient world was dramatically different from the way that we think of ours. Scholar John Walton writes in The Lost World of Genesis One , “Old world cosmic geography is based on...

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Psalm 19 | Creation Reflects God

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Matthew 5:17, Psalm 19:

Introduction During my time in seminary (and the year after I graduated) I spent a lot of time at a church in southern New Jersey. It’s actually how I met Scott Bullock, TPW board member and creator...

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Author

Richard B. Hays

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God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful and powerless death of the crucified Messiah. If that shocking event is the revelation of the deepest truth about the character...

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God's Image: Our True Identity

Author

Chuck DeGroat

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Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 3:1-7, Romans 7:14-25, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 51:10

God formed us in his image — a glorious thought! — but we all participate in the abandonment of that original identity…Does that mean that your precious little child is a dirty rotten sinner, as some ...

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Changing Your Mind

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

If you really want to change, it starts with your story. If you want to change the story of your life, you need to change the stories in your mind. So what story do you want to live? Do you want to ex...

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Salvation & Judgment

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

In much of contemporary society, we are only willing to focus on God’s love and grace, rarely on God’s wrath or even judgment. This story is a good reminder that God’s relationship towards us is multi...

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Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

“Have you considered,” asks God to Satan, “my servant Job?” Well, Satan had and he hadn’t, and part of the puzzle of Job is why God put the question like that to Satan in the first place. The Gospels ...

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Same Bible, Very Different God

Author

John Mark Comer

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Last week, an atheist came up to me and asked how I could believe in a God who made parents eat their children. Naturally, I was a little confused. A lot of people have odd ideas about God, but ...

liturgy

Romans 16:25-27

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Scripture

Romans 16:25-27

Now to him who is able to establish you according to my Good News and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret through long ages, but now is...

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Finding God in the Slowness of Life

Author

A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

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We admit that embracing slowness is hard . But slowness transforms us. One of our favorite theologians, Dr. John Goldingay, served for decades as a professor of Old Testament theology. Goldingay ...

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Christianity: A One-Way Ticket to Heaven?

Author

N. T. Wright

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Most people today imagine that the point of Christianity is “to go to heaven when you die.” That’s what most believers believe. It’s what most unbelievers unbelieve. It’s certainly what journalists, b...

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The Gospel and the Other: Preaching in an Age of "Us vs. Them"

Author

Andrew DeCort

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:25-37

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

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Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities

Author

Mark R. Glanville

Keywords

Kate's Crisis: Values vs. Church One damp afternoon during the fall of 2016 I was sharing a pastoral conversation with Kate, a professional artist in her late 20s. Over years of meals and convers...

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About Anti-Asian Racism in America (And What Your Church Can Do About)

Author

Jin Cho

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 7:9

The following article was originally written for the author’s denominational newsletter as part of the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. It is meant to provide some insights into t...

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The Truman Show & the Cracks in Our Reality

Author

Mark Labberton

Keywords

Reality

Let’s take stock of the challenge once again: the work of spiritual transformation, by which we come to live in God in the midst of our neighborhood, is the most difficult process in the universe. Thi...

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The Church Losing its Place as the Center of Attention

Author

Tim Wu

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The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...

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The Standard Operating System

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

This historical context unveils the truth that evangelicalism and white evangelicalism happen to be at least four-hundred-or-so-year-old conjoined twins who have never been separated in their lives. T...

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But He’d Be Wrong!

Author

John M. Perkins

Keywords

Reporters Alex Alston and James Dickerson tell a sad story about a church that sought to integrate its ranks: The Mississippi Delta was in a tizzy over rumors that blacks might show up at white church...

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The Cross our Spiritual Centerpiece

Author

Judith Couchman

Keywords

Scripture

John 3:14-15, Numbers 21:4-9, Genesis 22:, Philippians 2:8, Galatians 6:14, Colossians 1:19-20, 1 Corinthians 1:18

God could have chosen any method to save us, but he used the cross. The cross is our spiritual centerpiece, the sign of our soul’s emancipation. However, the pre-Christian cross might offer a sliver ...

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A Review of "The Minority Experience" by Adrian Pei

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 2:14, Galatians 3:28, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Proverbs 31:8-9, James 2:1-4, Amos 5:24, Isaiah 1:17

Editors Note: This is perhaps less a review as a jumping off part to articulate some thoughts I developed while reading The Minority Experience. For a full review of the title, a cursory google search...

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Looking Back to Find the Way Out

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:26, Revelation 2:5, Philippians 1:3, Isaiah 46:9, 2 Peter 1:12-15

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

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If birds could write books, their story of creation

Author

Barbara Brown Taylor

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:2, Exodus 14:21, 1 Kings 19:11-12, Psalm 104:3-4, Acts 2:2-4, John 3:8, Matthew 6:25-34

If birds could write books, their story of creation would no doubt read quite differently than ours. In the first place, I expect they would make quite a lot out of that wind of God that swept over th...

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Author

Andrew Arndt

Keywords

I love that line. “Surely the LORD is in this place,” Jacob muses, “and I was not aware of it.” Isn’t that, more or less, the story with most of us, most of the time?

worldview and perspective on God's Story

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