The oil is poured The criticism comes even while the scent is still thick in the air Why this waste? Why worship? Why take the time? Why spend the money? The poor, remember the poor There’s so mu...
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...
Romans 5:3-5, 1 Peter 4:12-13, Galatians 6:9, Colossians 1:24, 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 20:22-24, 1 Timothy 6:12, Hebrews 10:36, Luke 14:27, Matthew 16:24-26
Once, when the famous missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, was in Africa, he wrote home to England requesting more workers. In reply, he received this message: We would like to send more workers to y...
Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss. We cannot measure our lives in terms of "gain"; they must be measured in terms of "loss." Our real capacity lies not in how...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A letter of friendship Paul’s letter to the Philippians is from Paul and his companions to the saints in Philippi. It is a letter fro...
Ephesians 2:4-5, Hebrews 2:14-15, 1 Peter 2:24, Philippians 2:6-8, Isaiah 53:5, John 3:16-17, 1 John 4:9-10
Why should I, who have been living from all eternity in the enjoyment of the Father’s love, go to cast myself into such a furnace for them that never can requite me for it? Why should I yield myself t...
In class I often use a show-and-tell example to illustrate the central point for the understanding of ministry. I invite a student to join me at the front of the class. I always pick a large, strongly...
The Eucharist, as a communion of love in and through Christ’s sacrifice, involves learning cruciformity as members of Christ’s sacrificial Body. As such, the Eucharist fulfills Israel’s mode of sacrif...
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...
There’s an aphorism repeated often in the writings of the medieval church: per crucem ad lucem, through the cross to the light. God loves us passionately and wants to bring us joy and flourishing, but...
In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the reality of what it means to “take up our cross” in our daily lives: Sometimes we suffer u...
Please know that when I take up my cross every day I am not talking about my wheelchair. My wheelchair is not my cross to bear. Neither is your cane or walker your cross. Neither is your dead-end job ...
*it is possible this story is apocryphal, we were unable to find the original source of the story. Admiral Nelson of the British Navy was renowned for his mastery of naval strategy, a genius fro...
We want gain without pain; we want the resurrection without going through the grave; we want life without experiencing death; we want a crown without going by way of the Cross. But in God's econom...
The Dolorous Passion described Simon of Cyrene as a “stout-looking man,” and a fourth-century sarcophagus (stone coffin) from Rome supports this description – The Passion Sarcophagus, probably from th...
Exodus 20:3, Isaiah 53:4-6, Matthew 16:24, John 19:17, Psalm 22:14
An American businessman went to Oberammergau to witness the famous passion play, just before the outbreak of World War II. Enthralled by this great drama that depicts the story of the cross, he went b...
Matthew 6:14-15, Colossians 3:12-13, 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Matthew 10:32-33, Ephesians 4:31-32, Mark 11:25, 1 John 1:7, Matthew 18:21-35, Matthew 5:23-24
In the second century, a priest from Antioch named Sulpicius had steadfastly refused to sacrifice to the gods, even under torture, and was being led away to be beheaded. As he walked, a Christian name...
John 3:16-17, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:9-10, Matthew 27:45-50, Isaiah 53:1-5, Luke 23:34, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Ephesians 5:2, John 15:13
In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...
In his book of the same name, seminary professor Andrew Purves describes the centrality of the cross as it relates to ministry: When I speak at conferences about the crucifixion of ministry, ministe...
In his important book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, seminary professor Andrew Purves sees a paradigm in Elijah’s ministry: For many years I have taken Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19 as a paradigm. Eli...
One of the saddest features of Islam is that it rejects the cross, declaring it inappropriate that a major prophet of God should come to such an ignominious end. The Koran sees no need for the sin-bea...
Whether playing baseball or basketball, one of the first sports lessons kids are taught is the counterintuitive truth that focusing too much on aiming where you want for the ball to go is likely to ba...
Martin of Tours was a 4th century Frankish soldier who, after a personal encounter with Jesus, left the Roman army and became a hermetic monk and later a bishop. Dozens of stories of his life have cir...
Jesus did not descend from the cross. He was powerless, delivered up to his opponents. There was a false and erroneous form of Christianity that refused to accept that. As early as the second century ...
A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-suffiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage.
Exposed to public view like slabs of meat hung from a market stall, troublesome slaves were nailed to crosses…past. No death was more excruciating, more contemptible, than crucifixion. To be hung nake...