Like all Americans, I grew up looking at a flag with my hand over my heart as I pledged my life to it at schools, sports, and even church. It had the word “God” in it, so I figured I was on the right track, but as I grew up, I started to note too…
I’ve run into an enigma here and there where people want to keep the idea of God, but they don’t want to agree with him. And so some find themselves venturing down a path where God can still exist, but his opinion doesn’t really matter. With nothing really to guide their opinion about him other…
A few years back, an artist grafted a tree together that was capable of growing 40 different kinds of fruits. This is a more extravagant picture of what Paul presents in his letter to the Romans. There he pictures the Jewish people as an olive tree that God grew and non-Jewish people as wild olives…
Israel was elected by God to bear his name in the world. Everywhere they went, they were to be a representation of who God is, what he’s like, and how the people under him should live, govern, speak and act. Israelites we’re literally born as the elect, chosen people of God and his salvation. Except…
Christians have long asked the question of, “What happens to those who have never heard the gospel?” Paul answered this question by quoting an old prophetic Psalm to make the point that, “The Heavens have already told everyone about Jesus.” And all God’s people said, “What?” Bible scholar Michael Heiser blends this passage with a…
Since forgiveness is such a central Christian topic, I thought I’d write up a few quick pointers to help us understand it a little better. 1. Forgiveness means someone owes you a debt. Forgiveness is not an emotional conversation about sin, but a tangible one we can all see in a physical dollar bill. Consider…
Because of Paul’s excellent teaching on “salvation by faith,” Christians often view this doctrine as a uniquely New Testament movement. “In the Old Testament people were saved by obedience to the law, but in the New Testament we are saved by faith,” we often say. But if you pay close attention, you’ll see that this…
Paul has a rather unpopular teaching in Romans that people prefer to skip over or explain away and it goes like this: “God shows mercy and compassion on whoever he wants and hardens whoever he wants.” Paul links this teaching back to the story of Pharaoh who seemed caught up in a bit of a…
Why do we make a big deal about eating together when we gather on Sundays? Why do we incorporate communion into it? Is it just to be cool or is there a Biblical precedent to it? In Sunday’s message, I explain how eating together connects to Jesus’ ministry and the gatherings of the early church,…
The first time I heard the song How He Loves at a college chapel, I was both mesmerized and skeptical. I was drawn in by the very first words and surprised that a worship song could be so poetic. Sure, like most people I was startled by the phrase, “heaven meets earth like a sloppy…
In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Pilgrim’s Regress, the allegorical God character is called, “the Landlord.” This is a pretty clever title as it encompasses quite a bit of theology from the book of Genesis. Having created the earth and all that it is in it, God then raised up human beings and gave them the…
Jamin Bradley 