A Fresh Perspective

The text we read together in Luke 24 is Luke’s empty tomb story. When it comes to the appearance stories, all the Gospels have their own unique stories to tell, with the exception of Mark, who does not include an appearance story. But all four Gospels have some version of the empty tomb story. Each story is unique and contains variations from the others (there are differences in the details) but the main point, of course, is the main point of all the stories. The tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive. The question this raises for me is this: Why was the story of the empty tomb considered to be of such importance that each of our canonical Gospels contain a version of it?    It’s not, in my estimation, intended to teach that the resurrection of Jesus has to be physical? In 1 Cor. 15, where Paul is responding to questions about the resurrection raised by the Corinthians, Paul struggles to try to explain what the resurrection involves in terms of the body. He says, “fles h an...

We have two different end time visions here – one in Isaiah and the other in Luke. Before I preach these texts, before I draw spiritual truths from them, I need to say a word about them, particularly the text in Luke 21. First, when the biblical writers talk about the last days of the end-time, the end they are talking about is not the end of everything; they are not talking about the end of the earth. They are talking about the end of the present age, which they believed would usher in a new age, an age of healing and renewal, an age of peace and justice, not somewhere else, but on this earth.  So the end is not the end of the earth, but the end of this present age, and the beginning of a new age on this earth. Thus the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer: Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Second, the text in Luke 21 is extremely difficult to interpret from a historical perspective, and biblical scholarship is divided on it. As I have said many times before, Gospel st...

In a recent interview by Kim Lawton of PBS Religion and Ethics , author and columnist Lisa Miller, Pastor Rob Bell, author of Love Wins , and Mary Vanden Berg, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, raise some important issues about where Rob Bell stands in relation to evangelical Christianity. Miller notes that what upset people most about Rob Bell was that he calls himself a conservative evangelical Christian. If he called himself an Episcopalian, she observes, nobody would have batted an eye. Miller, of course, is right. This is what sent Bell’s book, Love Wins , ringing throughout the land (pun intended). As Miller comments, Bell’s position on heaven, hell, and the possible salvation of every person, “is a radical upheaval of that entire worldview.” This is why popular conservative pastor, John Piper, tweeted, “So long Bell,” when he first heard of Bell’s position (even before he read the book). He was talking about Bell’s departure from t...