Who do you identify with in the Passion narratives?

Of course, as good Christians, we say Jesus. He’s the good guy, our protagonist. As we relive the story, we pull for him, and against his enemies. And a long list of enemies it is: Judas who betrays him, Peter who denies him, the chief priests who hate him, Herod who mocks him, the crowd that calls for his crucifixion, Pilate who washes his hands and condemns him, and Barrabas who is guilty but gets to go free.

Wait a minute.

Barrabas—the guilty one who gets to go free?

In his 23rd chapter, Luke leads us sinners, in his careful wording of the narrative, to identify in this significant way with Barrabas. As Jesus’ cond…

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Who else would call Noah’s ark “a floating zoo of creepy-crawlies”? Sam Crabtree is a skilled turner of curious phrases and has the rare gift of never being boring. His most recent article wrestles with how to be both green and missional. Here’s a sample:

We can strive to save both mortal mammals and immortal souls, while realizing that saved whales will not save souls, while saved souls might so earnestly desire for everything that has breath to praise God that they set out to save whales. So wise Christians put their God-given energy where it might make the greatest difference in the long haul. Once again God presents us with a situation that is both/and, and first/then. Save…

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Don’t limit your understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty to five points in a mnemonic device (TULIP). Do start there, or at least cover that terrain in due course, but know that there is so much more to the full biblical worldview sometimes called Calvinism.

In the introductory essay that I referred to yesterday, J. I. Packer says, “it would not be correct to simply equate Calvinism with the ‘five points.’” He continues, (paragraphing added)

Calvinism is something much broader than the “five points” indicate.

Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King.

Calvinism is the co…

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In his introductory essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, J. I. Packer writes that Calvinism and Arminianism are “two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content.”

Packer continues, (paragraphing added)

One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself.

One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing…

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I recommend Doug Wilson’s Five Cities that Ruled the World (Thomas Nelson, 2009). The cities he highlights are Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York, each leaving the world a legacy.

Jerusalem has bequeathed to us a legacy of the spirit; Athens, reason and the mind; Rome, law; London, literature; and New York, industry and commerce. (xx)

In developing the literary legacy of London, Wilson unearths this nugget from C. S. Lewis about William Tyndale and the Reformation:

Tyndale was willing to endure great trials because of what he believed about the gospel. C. S. Lewis explained that the “whole purpose of the ‘gospel,’ for Tyndale, is to deliver us …

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Jesus keeps us off balance. We think we know that perfection is a fastball of justice, and he throws us the curveball of grace.

When I read Matthew 5:48 abstracted from it’s context, I’m thinking mainly in terms of justice.

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

“Perfect,” ah yes, surely that’s mainly about being just. But Jesus’ context gives this charge some wicked spin.

Despite what I would guess in extrapolating from verse 48, with my innate definition of perfection, Matthew 5:38-47 is all about moving beyond mere justice to God-like grace. “Perfection” in God is not merely “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (verse 38) …

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We’ve looked at Jesus’ full divinity under the heading “Jesus Is Lord” and his full humanity under “Jesus Is Savior.” Now we turn to his single personhood and utter uniqueness that makes him our soul-satisfying Treasure.

The term hypostatic union is much easier than it sounds, but the concept is as profound as anything in the universe—the personal union of the eternal Son of God with our humanity.

The English adjective hypostatic comes from the Greek word hupostasis. The word only appears four times in the New Testament—maybe most memorably in Hebrews 1:3, where Jesus is said to be “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Here the author of Hebrews use…

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Yesterday we summed up Jesus’ full divinity under the heading “Jesus Is Lord.” We said that the doctrine of the incarnation could be remembered with John 1:14, “The Word became flesh.” That “Word” is the divine second person of the Trinity, the eternal Word, who we know as Jesus.

Today we shift focus to Jesus’ full humanity. Not only did he remain fully divine when he took humanity to himself, but the humanity that he took was full humanity. And so Jesus has a fully human body, emotions, mind, and will—and this in no way compromises his deity.

Jesus’ Human Body

It is clear enough from the New Testament that Jesus had (and still has) a fully human body. Jesus was born (Luke 2:7). …

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A sinner can’t over-drink at God’s oasis—the fountain of life in the cross of his Son. Calvin explains:

[In the Bible] we read not of any having been blamed for drinking too much of the fountain of living water; on the contrary, those are severely reprimanded who ‘have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water’ (Jeremiah 2:13).

Again, what more agreeable to faith

• than to feel assured that God is a propitious Father when Christ is acknowledged as a brother and propitiator,
• than confidently to expect all prosperity and gladness from Him, whose ineffable love toward us was such that He ‘spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for …

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Tremper Longman has produced another beneficial resource for reading and rightly appropriating the Old Testament. This time it’s How to Read Exodus.

Tremper is particularly gifted at engaging with an impressive breadth of Old Testament scholarship. And he does this with an authentic and relentlessly Christ-centered bent, solidly evangelical convictions, and the ability to distill and articulate his findings in such a way that scholars, pastors, and laymen alike get real help.

There are 3 other titles in the “How to Read” series:

• How to Read Genesis
• How to Read the Psalms
• How to Read Proverbs

For introductory help for every Old Testament book, I highly rec…

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