Powerless Authority: A Retelling of the Jesus-Pilate Dialogues

Drugged with sleep, Pontius didn’t stir at his servant’s words: “Sir, Caiaphas and his priests are here to see you.” “I don’t care,” he snarled from the corner of his mouth. “Tell them to come back later.” “No, it can’t wait, sir. They have a prisoner they want crucified and buried before sundown.” Pilate replied […]
Discipling Lost People into Salvation

“Metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesesthai!” These were the words of Flavius Josephus to a group of Jewish rebels in 66 A.D., commanding them to abandon their current course of action and to instead come under His command and direction. In English, we recognize His words as, “Repent and believe in me!” To the Christian, this is reminiscent […]
Review of Dallas Willard’s ‘The Scandal of the Kingdom: How the Parables of Jesus Revolutionize Life with God’

The Scandal of the Kingdom is the latest collection of Dallas Willard’s teaching on living as a disciple of Jesus. Dallas served as a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California from 1965 until his retirement in 2012, and his writings on the spiritual life and discipleship to Jesus have left a profound […]
The Pitfalls of Winning

I am a sports fan. I admit it. I also admit that my mood can rise and fall with the success, or lack thereof, of my favorite teams. Some of you (many of you?) can relate to this. When my team wins, I feel good and feel that life is good. I feel upbeat and […]
God’s Will…Period.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder if we get too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We know the words. We know them so well that if someone started praying them out loud in a church service, like a kid saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we would jump right in. We would speak up, […]
Preach and Normalize “King Jesus”

Christ is one of those words in the New Testament that I believe it is unfortunate that we transliterated instead of translated. Jesus Christ would have been understood in the early church to mean “Jesus the Anointed King.” Re-read Paul’s letters and notice how often he refers to Jesus as Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, or […]