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Jesus Isn’t a Pez Dispenser
22. Nor does the pastor embody Jesus in the forced recitation of words, empty or well-meant. Virtually everything I teach conforms to historic Christian orthodoxy. And yet, there are many Christians who call me a heretic. Granted, I often call myself a heretic and encourage thoughtful followers of Christ to wrestle with many of the things…
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You Aren’t Being Jesus in Your Hate
21. Therefore the pastor doesn’t “with” love in excluding his LGBTQ brothers and sisters. The nature of Jesus is being with us. His place is with, presence. Jesus is present in a “withness”. Withness is active. It is intimate and full of hope. There is no grace without the comfort of intimacy. Take the idea that…
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Being Jesus
20. In taking on the form of Christ, we are making God present again and with the people. The Hands and Feet of Christ When I first realized the implications of Paul’s statement, it scared me. As metaphor, referring to the followers of Jesus as his hands and feet is pure beauty. Think about it! It’s…
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We Grow Love Together
19. And it is through these groupings we come to embody the love of Christ in ourselves. Our culture gives us a false impression that we can do life alone. And our churches give us the same false impression about life and much more. It often teaches us that love of God is all that matters…
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The God of Community
18. For God’s greatest activity is in the form of community, as small as twos and threes. I’m going to get right to the point with you. Our primary concern is off base and our solutions are bad. The church is getting it’s view of redemption wrong, which makes it impossible to fix our problem of…
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A Faith Which Imprisons God
17. By faith alone imprisons a God of redemption without transformation or enfleshed mission. I never really understood the idea of justification by faith alone. At one level it made sense, I guess. Reading Paul alongside the Jesus revealed in the gospels, it sorta sounds like that. Believe in Jesus and you’re good. And as…
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Belief Is More Than What You Think
16. The unembodied faith of the mind is a prison, ensnaring the souls of all people, even God! Faith is not the contents of your mind. Despite what many of the faithful demand of each other. Or what the faithless think we believe. Belief isn’t a set of words or rational arguments. Faith isn’t a statement…
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A Prison of Isolation
15. Nor is freedom from people anything but a prison of isolation. We sat in Joe’s arguing over greasy food in a debate over which is more important. Deep down, I knew Jen and I didn’t disagree. Not really. The argument wasn’t real. It was semantic. The heat generated from the friction of our altruism. The…