Monthly Archives: February 2014

Joseph: An example of Faith at the Cross of Jesus

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A sample of lessons that will be taught on an upcoming trip to Liberia to teach at a Pastor’s Conference with CrossWay

It is Friday around 3pm and Jesus is pronounced dead. The long awaited Messiah who would regather the Jews and restore Israel is hanging on a cross. Didn’t He say He was the King of the Jews? Didn’t He say the kingdom was at hand? Where is the kingdom? How can a dead King reign?

When all of Jesus followers had denied and deserted Him (Mark 14:50, 14:66-72; Matt 26:55-56), and even the women who supported Him were at a distance (Mark 15:40-41;Luke 23:49), an unexpected person comes forward to insure Jesus’ body is properly handled. Continue reading →

Applying Wright’s 5 Act Hermeneutic to 1 John

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NTWright_JohnWe have been studying the book of 1 John, and I have been catching up on reading Simply Jesus. In doing these two things I thought it would be interesting to re-read through 1 John and apply N.T. Wright’s 5 Act Hermeneutic.

Wright hermeneutic is based on taking the Scriptures as a meta-narrative, laying out its epic story (told in 66 books) in five acts (like a play). This story is about our God who loves His creation and the people in it. In this story there is an enemy, the Accuser who has deceived the people and wreaked havoc on creation. This enemy needs to be defeated. Continue reading →

Simply Jesus: Why did Jesus have to die?

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It has been awhile since I posted on my readings through Simply Jesus. Part of that has been the fact that life has been full of other activities. And part of that is because in this chapter Wright addresses an incredibly important question (which I wanted to take time to explore).

Why did the Messiah have to die?

Wright spends much of chapter 13 exploring how God surprised everyone in combining the roles of Messiah, servant, and returning God into the same person – Jesus.

This combination was a small step exegetically, but a giant leap theologically … Nobody, so far as we know, had dreamed of combining these ideas in this way before.

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Jesus’s vocation to be Israel’s Messiah and his vocation to suffer and die belong intimately together.

Wright then explains that the reason Jesus had to die was to defeat the true enemy – Continue reading →