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Not to take away from the undeniably biblical teaching that God is almighty, but sometimes I think we lose sight of God’s love for his image-bearers when we emphasize certain “strong” portraits of God at the expense of (instead of alongside of) other “weak” portraits found in Scripture. (I put “strong” and “weak” in quotes because perhaps our definitions of strength and weakness therefore need to change!) It might make some of us uncomfortable to read about God portrayed as a jilted lover or a frustrated mother, but those portraits just might be desperately needed in a time when so many people turn away from God because they can’t understand how he can possibly be the good Lord of a world so broken and dying. ...

(This post is about my late uncle, Timothy Steele. It’s long, and I swear toward the end. Sorry.) “It is better to go to a funeral than a feast. For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because sober reflection is good for the heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2-3) Timothy Steele The juxtaposition is staggering. The funeral of the man I most associate with laughter and joy. It hurts. No Steele family gathering was complete without hearing his boisterous laugh, receiving one of his legendary bear hugs, and – if you were lucky – getting one heck of a sloppy kiss on the cheek. ...

I’m not the most thankful person. However, I am a follower of Jesus, and one of the lessons I’ve been learning this semester is that praise, thanksgiving, and gratitude are closely intertwined. Worship should involve the public proclamation of who God is and what He has done — including specific, personal declarations of thanksgiving for God’s grace and good gifts. If, like me, you have a hard time cultivating this worshipful practice of gratitude, then allow me to suggest the following prayers from the Book of Common Prayer to help get us started. ...

Karl Barth’s exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations isperenniallyinspiring, but particularly poignant during this season of Lent. What does it mean for Christ to be the Perfect Penitent? And how should this influence our own repentance? The following series of quotations comes from a lengthy small-print section in CD IV/1, 259-73 (§ 59 The Obedience of the Son of God; 2. The Judge Judged in Our Place). There Barth walks through the three wilderness temptations before masterfully connecting them to Christ’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. ...

I just received the news today that my student paper submission for the 2015 Southeast Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society has been accepted! My theme lately has been to write on Karl Barth and the unity of the Church. At last year’s Regional ETS (hosted by my seminary, Beeson Divinity School), I presented an edited version of my undergraduate thesis: Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof: Atonement, Ecclesiology, and the Unity of God. Click the link if you’d like to read the PDF. Here’s the thesis: ...

Yesterday I posted the beginning of Karl Barth’s exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations. He does a masterful job of explaining how Christ was tempted, not to violate the Law or commit a moral infraction, but to abandon his role as the obedient, Perfect Penitent. Put differently, Barth clarifies that Jesus’ sinlessness is not a vague moral perfection, but rather obedience and repentance. Christ’s first temptation was to turn stones into bread, thereby using divine power as a “technical instrument” to save and maintain his own life. Today’s temptation contains an incisive critique of Christendom’s desire for influence, relevance, and power. ...

I’ve been reproducingKarl Barth’smagnificent exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations in Church Dogmatics IV/1. It is a particularly appropriate discussion for this season ofLent, for Jesus was not tempted to break the Law or commit a moral infraction. Instead, he was tempted to abandon his role as the Perfect Penitent. For Barth, if Christ had capitulated to any of the temptations, he would have abandoned God’s redemptive mission. Jesus Christ had to persist in penitence in order to be “the Judge Judged in Our Place” (Barth’s most concise description of the atonement proper). ...

For my 20th Century History & Doctrine course at Beeson Divinity School, I’m re-reading through Karl Barth’s Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. If you’re involved in the life and ministry of the Church in any respect, I strongly recommend that you buy and read this book! Here’s a particularly challenging portion from the chapter on “Wonder,” beginning on page 71. I wish the language were gender-inclusive, but Karl’s words still ring true: “After all, who am I to be a theologian? ...

The following essay deals with the theme of the fear of death in White Noise, the novel by Don DeLillo (affiliate link). It is better to go to a funeral than a feast. For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart.[1] Don DeLillo’s White Noise, “a paradigm of postmodern literature,”[2] yields the kind of cognitive dissonance that makes you wonder whether the author simply missed the mark, or if you are only confused because you suffer from the postmodern condition which DeLillo adroitly analyzes. ...

Hey internet: I was recently given the chance to preach at my church, St. Peter’s Anglican, on the Second Sunday of Lent. The sermon audio is now online. If you’ve got 23 minutes to spare, give it a listen! First, here are the passages: Psalm 121 Genesis 12:1-4 Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 John 3:1-17 Then, make sure to ignore my two seconds of speech from 16:35-16:37 in the audio, I departed from my notes — which ended at “Nicodemus then fades from the narrative,” (which he does in the passage at hand) — and said that Nicodemus apparently never gets it and never shows up again. As I was quickly reminded after the service, he does appear twice more in John’s Gospel. Oops! Next time I’ll stick to my notes and not make any extemporaneous comments about minor characters without thinking through the context first. ...