Presby-Musings

I just finished reading N.T. Wright 's short treatise For All The Saints ? Remembering the Christian Departed , which is a distilled version of his larger, academic work The Resurrection of the Son of God. Both works deal with what Wright believes is a "mismatch between what the earliest Christians believed about life after death--and what many ordinary Christians seem to believe on the subject today." If you've got a week to kill, then by all means pick up the Resurrection of the Son of God  and commence reading.  When Wright says it's "academic" he isn't kidding around.  But if you would like to visit his basic arguments about what the New Testament and early Christian tradition have to say about what happens to us when we die, then For All The Saints?  is more than adequate. For All The Saints? addresses particular controversies within the Anglican Communion surrounding the doctrine of Purgatory and also the inclusion of All Souls Day w...

Last week I preached on the Gospel . We learned that the Gospel--the "good news"--is bigger and far more expansive and inclusive than we ever imagined.  We also learned that for many people--especially Christians--it's hard to live into the hope of that good news.  We tend to want to stay in our safe little world where nothing has to change--including us. This week we are taking this a bit father.  Once we finally "get" that the Good News of Jesus Christ is something that is bigger, better and far more transformational than we ever imagined, we should move to embrace it and live into the hope of a Resurrection LIFE.   But what does that look like?  The New Testament writers tended to think it looked like " justification ." What does it mean to us that because we embrace the Good News that God has justified us?  And what is our response to this? I think it comes down to two things.  You have to know Jesus, and then you have to show Jes...