A Fresh Perspective

The wisdom of the domination system, the wisdom of the world can come to us disguised as the wisdom of God, and we can go a long ways and a long time thinking it’s the wisdom of God. For a good number of years my dominant image of God was that of a Judge who presided in a heavenly courtroom and demanded payment from his human creation for breaking his law. The God I imagined was bound to the law and intolerant toward sin. God demanded punishment. And not just any punishment. Punishment by death. So God sent Jesus, God’s unique Son, to die, so that God’s justice would be satisfied, and that God would be free to release the rest of humankind from the penalty and punishment they deserve for having transgressed God’s law and offended God’s justice. But then, at some point on my journey when I gave myself permission to question and even doubt, I began to wonder why God’s unique Son would have to die such a cruel death by execution in order to satisfy some broken law, particularly ...

In his letter to the church at Philippi , it is fairly obvious that Paul is concerned about some influences that were steering the church away from the teaching he had imparted and the example he had modeled. It seems that there were two different kinds of pressures being exerted upon the church. One influence pressed for legalistic obedience to rules (3:2), while the other invited a casting off of all restraints (3:18–19). These two influences are still around and they tempt us in very subtle ways. One calls us to take part in an economy of meritocracy, of tit-for-tat. Its appeal is to the calculating mind where there are clear winners and losers.  The other influence entices us with appeals to freedom to shed boundaries that we think we do not need. Here the message is: Just let yourself go, don’t worry about the consequences, live for the moment. There is certainly something to be said for living in the moment, but living in self-indulgence without regard for boundaries is...

When I say “the way up is down” I do not mean to infer this as a strategy for personal success, honor, or reward.   When the disciples were caught arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus rebuked them and said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). Jesus was not saying that downward mobility in this life is the way to acquire upward mobility in the next. Jesus was not laying out a strategy for accumulating rewards in the next life or for moving up in the pecking order. What he was saying is that in God’s kingdom there is no pecking order. It does not operate on the basis of meritocracy. God’s kingdom is not about being first or last; it’s not about winners and losers. It’s all about loving one another and being the servant of all, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Jesus was, however, expounding the way to experience fullness of life in God’s kingdom now and later. This way involves relin...

Joel Osteen has been deemed by many as America ’s Pastor. He is the pastor of the largest church in America and his books have sold in the millions. I recently scanned Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now in search of any serious reflection or teaching on the life, teaching, and death of Jesus and Jesus’ call to discipleship presented in the Gospels. It’s not there.   That’s not to say that Osteen doesn’t have some good things to say. He talks about developing a healthy self-image, cultivating a positive outlook, and claiming one’s worth and value as a child of God—all very good things. But his emphasis on personal success seems to fly in the face of the gospel of Jesus in the Gospels. He writes, “If you will keep the right attitude, God will take all your disappointments, broken dreams, the hurts and pains, and He’ll add up all the trouble and sorrow that’s been inflicted upon you, and He will pay you back with twice as much peace, joy, happiness, and success . . . If ...