Protestants are generally suspicious of Catholics. I often hear concern that Catholics work to earn their salvation. In this post, I would like to turn that accusation back on Protestants. We talk a lot about grace, but I’m not convinced that the typical Protestant confidently believes that he doesn’t...
God’s scandalous grace invaded Portage, Wisconsin, with unwelcomed splendor in April of 1994. It targeted a criminal serving multiple life-sentences in the Columbia Correctional Institution. It’s not uncommon for thieves and murderers in prison to receive God’s grace, but this day was different. The person who attracted God’s love...
Here's an excerpt from the book I'm writing on Grace. Love to hear your thoughts!
Ezekiel 16 is a stunning portrait of grace told through the lens of a racy allegory. In as much as the Israelites resemble human nature as a whole, this allegory reveals God’s love for you...
Yesterday, I argued that the gospel is good news to every culture. It affirms all the best longings in that culture and points beyond the superficial to the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. But we have to be clear: the gospel is also inherently...
Mary Magdalene is one of the most well-known and yet misunderstood women in the Bible. She’s commonly portrayed in Christian art as a forgiven prostitute, or, in an extreme case, she’s thought to be Jesus’ wife—the “holy grail”—according to Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. Neither of these depictions bears a...
The Old Testament is all about grace. It contains some laws and talks about judgment. But at the end of the day, the whole thing is held together by grace. If you pull grace out, like tugging on a loose thread from a sweater, the whole garment will become...
Of all the bizarre chapters in the Bible, Genesis 38 has got to be near the top of the list. In it, we read about Judah, the son of Jacob, who lusts over a Canaanite woman (a big no, no), has sex with her (another no, no), and she...
The Bible is filled with women who were prostitutes, adulteresses, or downright sexually promiscuous. It’s striking, however, that a large majority of them are depicted as objects of grace rather than judgment. As much as the Bible condemns fornication, it
also offers the solution to it: grace. That relentless, unconditional,...
I mentioned before that our book of the month feature wasn’t necessarily going to be a monthly feature. I wasn’t lying. We’ll just post about great books we’ve read whenever we feel like passing them on to you.
This “month” I want to recommend When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate...
Moralism controls our reading of Scripture, especially the Old Testament. When we dust off the first 2/3 of the Bible and seek to find some spiritual wisdom, we often scurry to find examples of morally upright people. We want to be like Abraham, be like Jacob, and follow in...