Blog Archives
easter 2012: things you should read
Easter has come to us once again, and we set our minds and hearts on the death and resurrection of Christ.
I am going to refrain from writing a new post for the event, since there are so many good resources out there. Here are a few of them:
What’s Love got to do with it? The Politics of the Cross
Stanley Hauerwas at his best on the meaning of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.- The Meaning of the Resurrection – Then and Now
N.T. Wright is predictably brilliant on the Resurrection - Why Did Jesus Die?
George Athas of Moore College does a great job of attempting this massive question. - Easter Art: Stations of the Cross from Latin America
Artworks that act as a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer and meditation, connecting Easter with contemporary issues of justice. Not to be missed! - The Crucified (Nonviolent) God
My post from last Easter, if anyone was interested.
MCA
sickness and healing (part 2): death as healing?
Note: I recommend you read Part 1 of this series to understand the context of these questions.
My last post was inspired, by a sermon I heard (and a number of subsequent conversations), to ask whether sickness could be caused by sin.
In this post I want to address another related question that I mentioned last time, namely whether dying and “going to be with Jesus” is a form of healing.
In the course of the sermon discussions described in the last post it was suggested by one participant that when a sick person does not receive healing and dies as a result of their sickness then this could be seen as a form of healing since the person goes to heaven to be with Jesus.
Someone then asked whether being cured by medicine could be seen “healing” in a biblical sense.
In response I asked my group a question – “Are we saying that miraculous healing is “healing”, and so is being cured by medicine, and also dying? If yes, does that mean that everything is healing? Even not being healed is healing. What isn’t healing?”
Personally I don’t think dying is a form of healing at all. To suggest so is, to me, a misunderstanding of the biblical view of healing and death. Allow me to explain. Read the rest of this entry
jesus’ apocalypse
Warning: Bible nerd alert.
Well it has been a while since I blogged. Good to get some thoughts down again.
This will also be my first time in a while writing on biblical studies, and it feels good to be back talking about a discipline I feel at home in…
So I have been writing a series of lectures on the Gospel of Matthew, and over the last two weeks have written on the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24-25, a section I have broadly referred to as Jesus’ Apocalypse. This section of Jesus’ teaching is thought by most people to be about the so-called ‘End Times’, with the vast majority of biblical commentators claiming at least most of the discourse is related to that event.
More specifically, Matthew 24:30 has been taken by most as referring to the Second Coming:
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
However I have taken a different view. Keep Reading…
