What would the church look like if Christians saw their lives as constituted by the Spirit's presence to live as Jesus lived? In a time when being «led by the Spirit» is defined more by achieving the «American Dream» than by Jesus's life, answering this question rightly seems all the more critical for the church to survive in a culture increasingly hostile to Christianity. Building upon the work of post-Constantinians John Howard Yoder ...
In this innovative study, Anna Miller challenges prevailing New Testament scholarship that has largely dismissed the democratic civic assembly–the ekklesia–as an institution that retained real authority in the first century CE. Using an interdisciplinary approach, she examines a range of classical and early imperial sources to demonstrate that ekklesia democracy continued to saturate the eastern Roman Empire, widely impacting debates over author ...
The Apostle Paul, in exercising his ineffable wisdom, draws this magnificent letter to a close in an extraordinary manner. Certainly, he could have concluded it after telling the masters and servants how to treat one another. But, no, he did not. He proceeded to challenge them to become Christ's Ambassadors and to be proficient in this high calling, despite the daily obstacles, pressures, and temptations. What does Paul boldly state after ...
Since the day Jesus ascended into heaven, the church has eagerly awaited his second coming. And during the intervening years too many Christians have focused their study of the Bible entirely on discovering the end-time signs of his coming. Does Jesus expect us to focus on dates and signs, or does he want us to instead develop a healthy and mature apocalyptic spirituality as we await his coming and the culmination of his plan of redemption and r ...
Ministry is challenging, complex, and costly. Too many pastors and church leaders are getting spread thin, burned out, and walking away! In an ever-changing church culture that includes social media, blurred denominational lines, and an increased demand for relational ministry, many pastors are feeling overwhelmed, becoming discouraged, and dropping out of leadership roles. You may be one of them–but you are not ready to give up. The Res ...
The Trinity can be understood as a social community with members speaking and listening to one another in love, or, as Luther understood the Trinity, as conversation, then God's mission essentially involves in mission-in-dialogue. Byungohk Lee contends the church has to embrace the dialogical dimension in missional terms because the triune God is the subject of mission. The missional church conversation has taken it for granted that local c ...
Leaders of congregations want to foster change but how is rarely obvious. Some pursue top-down approaches while others think bottom-up. Either approach assumes some control by the leader, but effective leadership of change needs more than control; it requires influencing the ongoing change that is naturally occurring. In the organizational literature this matter is understood in terms of systems and more specifically complex adaptive systems or ...
O'er All the Weary World is a lively collection of short stories for the Christmas season. These thought-provoking and resonant stories recount moments of enlightenment, incarnation, decision, and revelation–moments to which all human beings, by the grace of God, have access. With one exception, the stories are related to traditional Scripture lessons found in the common lectionary during the season of Advent. Each story may be used for con ...
This work employs multiple methodologies to analyze the story of the man born blind (John 9) in order to discern how this episode serves the greater purpose of the Gospel, stated in 20:31: «so that you may trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through trusting you may have life.» The analysis of linguistic patterns; narrative structure; cultural anthropology; and an analysis of irony, humor, and wit are each employed. These are al ...
