Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith

For centuries, “Kingdom work” was synonymous with the stuff pastors do – preaching, sacraments, general church-running…  This was the “eternal” work done for God, and the province of a small minority of God’s people who were “ordained” to the role. “Secular” work was what one did for money, not an equally important embodiment of Jesus’s ministry of […]

Conflict is the last thing anyone wants from their “church experience.”  After all, we go to church to feel better, to get a little uplift to face the week, right?  It’s the one place where we don’t have to deal with the typical human foibles of self-interest, pettiness, passive-aggression…right?  I mean, sure, we may have […]

Churches obsess about a lot of things.  Some things important (e.g., budgets and buildings and staff).  Most…not so much (from the minutiae of worship to revamping the website one more time).  And none of these the stuff that stands at the center of the biblical story.  So what should a church obsess about???  What should […]

The true test of a theology is not questions is answers but the community it creates.   Having just spent more than a year developing an understanding of the biblical narrative – centered on the conviction that God is love – we now turn our attention to “us,” to the conscious shaping of our life […]

At last we come to the end of the biblical journey: all creation made new!  And the completion of the project of salvation is symbolized by the return of the “tree of life,” indeed a near forest of them now lining the center of the city.  (Remember it was access to the tree of life […]

What is heaven like?  For centuries that question conjured within the Christian imagination images of a glorious “elsewhere” – a place very unlike earth where the souls of the saints dwell in a sort of dreamlike bliss.  Such a vision was part and parcel of the larger belief that the very goal of “this life” […]

Throughout the biblical story the final establishment of the kingdom of God has been described in terms of both blessing and wrath.  In the Hebrew scriptures, “the (great and terrible) day of the Lord” is one in which the true allegiances of both Israel and the nations are judged.  Those who have proven faithful to […]

Revelation has now granted us a look at the very nature of evil itself, as well as the means by which it exercises power in creation – namely violence and deception.  The question that remains is:  Why does humanity so willingly (and repeatedly) ally itself with such powers of destruction?  Why do the false promises […]

Kirk’s 2nd Rule of Biblical Study:  Attend to the context!  That is to say, we must always keep in mind the historical, literary, social…elements that underly any passage of scripture (or any ancient literature).  And Revelation 14 is one of the chief examples of why.  Without understanding the context, Rev. 14 is one of the […]

Interpreting the Bible well requires that we understand  the central conflict – the dilemma that God must resolve.  Last week we had our clearest glimpse of  the Enemy (symbolized in the dragon) – the one opposing the loving purposes of God.  But how does the the Enemy exercise its power?  After all, most people have […]