When Jesus said his Kingdom is not of this world, he didn’t mean it had no place in this world. In eternity Jesus made heaven, inhabited its perfections, and ruled supreme there. In history he came to earth to show us what perfection looks like and taught us how to emulate him while living here …
Heaven Shares its King
Jesus uses “Kingdom of Heaven” over and over to describe a way of life that is transplanted from heaven to earth. It’s not just a Kingdom in heaven, but the Kingdom of heaven wherein he injects the life of heaven in willing earthly subjects. He gradually grows that life inside them, and then, through them …
Two Gospels?
The typical evangelical pitch to pre-Christians these days sounds something like, “Come to Jesus and when you die he will take you to a better world.” While that’s true, I believe that it should include something more like, “Come to Jesus and you’ll come alive. And when you do, come help us make this a …
A Revolutionary Social Agenda
Jesus likeness is not something you tack onto the outside. His is an inside job. His way of transforming us into his likeness is from the inside out. The white-knuckle approach to Christianity only leads to frustration and failure. We can only hope to live out the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount in …
A Christianity That Looks Like Christ
I warn you that the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), which is a condensation of some of the primary ethical teaching of Jesus, maybe above all his other discourses preserved for us in the New Testament, challenges our presuppositions about living the Christian life and calls us into the outlandish lifestyle of the Jesus …
