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Jesus' Definition of Leadership Is Backwards: Like other Jewish Martyrs

5/9/2020

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​Jesus’ definition of leadership is not what the political revolutionaries of his day wanted. They wanted to subjugate their enemies. They wanted to turn people into an army that followed their commands. They ironically used the same strategies of the system that oppressed them to fight for change. But Jesus had a different idea.
 
To understand how Jesus leads, we must understand what kind of leaders were rallying people to their cause in first-century Israel. He wasn’t the only one claiming to be the Messiah. Many self-proclaimed kings were carving out what they thought would create God’s kingdom on earth. So he had to boldly demonstrate what leaders in God’s economy really did.


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“Seek First the Kingdom and His Righteousness” (Matthew 6:33): And how will God meet our basic needs?

3/15/2020

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In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses our anxiety about basic needs. He says not to worry about food or clothing because God has a plan to provide for us just like he does for the birds and the flowers (see Matthew 6:25-32). Then Jesus tells us where to put our focus: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
How should we understand this combined command and promise from Jesus? We know from the preceding context that “all these things” doesn’t refer to everything you might want. It only refers to your basic needs: things to eat, to drink, and to wear. But even with that caveat, we know many people have both loved Jesus and struggled in dire poverty. Having faith in Jesus has not eliminated their children’s malnourishment or covered their bodies during cold nights. So is Jesus giving us some optimistic half-truth or have we misunderstood the message?

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Left Behind or Taken: Which One Is Better at Jesus' Promised Judgment?

12/14/2019

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​Did you know that belief in a sudden rapture of the church at the end of time is a recent invention? John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) created the idea to fit his belief that all Old Testament prophecies about Israel’s glory days were going to come true for a future Jewish nation on earth. The popularity of his rapture doctrine grew at the end of the 1800s and into the mid-1900s because of DL Moody, Billy Sunday, and the Scofield Reference Bible. In less than 100 years, the idea went from unknown to a virtual litmus test for whether you believed what the Bible really says.
 
How could people so quickly adopt this new idea into their doctrinal statements? Because Jesus and Paul talk plainly about being “taken” during a future judgment. Jesus says in Luke 17:34-35, “I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.” It certainly sounds like some people will be whisked away during whatever judgment Jesus is talking about in Luke 17:21-37. If you trust the Bible’s every word, how else could you read it?
 
Before we adopt this recent idea about the end times, we should investigate what being “taken” and “left” behind means when the Bible describes a coming judgment. The New Testament isn’t the first time these expressions were used. Mr. Darby might have misunderstood the meaning of “taken” and “left” behind by failing to read the language in the context of Old Testament prophecy.


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Jesus' Parables: Surprising Stories that Change How You Imagine God

10/13/2019

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​Jesus was not always the most succinct teacher. And he taught that way on purpose.

Among first century Jews, Rabbis generally had one of two teaching styles: Halakha or Hagadda. Halakha focused on concrete rules to follow. Hagadda focused on provocative story-telling that explored what God was all about in more powerful ways than abstract statements could deliver. Jesus preferred one of these methods to the other.


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“Gates of Hades” Didn’t Stop Jesus from Building His Movement on this Rock

8/11/2019

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Jesus’ response to Peter’s “Aha moment” about His identity as Messiah has baffled many Bible readers for centuries.
“You are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades will not be able to stop it”
      - Matthew 16:18
Jesus makes a string of three confident claims here. He had struggled for years to build the faith of his followers, but not anymore. Now that his disciples know he really is the Messiah, he doesn’t believe anything can stop his new movement. Not even the Gates of Hades.

But what are the “Gates of Hades”? Is it Hell or an evil city or a band of demons roaming the earth? And what rock is Jesus building on? To answer those questions, we must look around the region where Jesus said these words. There is a long history of divine assemblies on tall mountains and kings who return from the dead.

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Gain the whole world but lose your soul: Jesus dismantles YOLO Theology (& the Sadducees who loved it)

7/4/2019

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What are we really looking for in life? How you answer that question determines a lot about you. You might do the same things as people around you, but your reasons shape the results. It’s no different when it comes to faith. So much of what we seek from Jesus is determined by what we want out of life itself.​

I have found over the years that most of us use God to get what we want. Spiritual Narcissism is rampant. We are not looking to get on board with God’s mission, but rather to get God’s help on ours.

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Why We Don’t Care What Jesus (or any Bible verse) Meant

6/3/2019

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We all have secrets. Some secrets we intentionally hide; others reside deep in our subconscious hiding unaware, pretending to stay out of sight for our good.

As I have studied the historical background of the Bible for the last 20 years, I have repeatedly discovered Jesus’ message to be shaped more by our attractions than his intentions. When I have shared what I learned in chapels and classrooms, Bible studies and beer gardens, the response has been mixed. Many would rather retain what they like rather than learn what Jesus meant.
We like to have our truth, rather than be disrupted by the truth. Our aversion to alter what we have assumed reveals a nasty secret in our subconscious. What is that secret?

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The Story that Defines Us: A Narrative Creed for the Church, from the Bible, and relevant to the Human Experience

4/14/2019

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I proclaimed the "Death of Systematic Theology" in 2016 because its form and function does not reflect the diverse genius of Scripture. It is a bold claim, but I believe the evidence is there to warrant it. In that critique, I called for a new kind of creed that advances beyond "statements of faith" to an inspiring storyline that defines who we are and where everything is headed. I called it an "Orthoscript,” so we could move beyond the debate between"Orthodox" statements (about how to correctly phrase the tenets of your faith) and "Orthopraxy" (the right things to do).

In my initial manifesto, I presented a sample narrative of Jesus in action rather than the typical set of static statements, but I never published a comprehensive "Orthoscript" about the whole story that defines why we are here, where we have faltered, and who we can now be in the story God is writing. I believe it is now time to replace every "doctrinal statement" stuck in the linguistic concepts of previous cultures with a new metanarrative. And I need your feedback in order to overcome my own biases and cultural misperceptions as we craft a story bigger than ourselves that can define each self.

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Do You Follow Jesus, or a Religion You Created Around Jesus? Rabbis, Scribes, and Pharisees All Missed His Point

3/27/2019

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A lot of antagonistic stories in the Gospels begin with “then some Pharisees and Scribes showed up.” Matthew 15:1-2 is typical. “Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’” These religious teachers were always concerned that Jesus wasn’t doing and teaching what they demanded. They were threatened by the possibility that people would follow his lead.

But Jesus isn’t impressed by their social capital. He thinks their enterprise is an epic adventure in missing the point. So he replies in Matthew 15:3, “Why do you break God’s command for your tradition?” Would Jesus say the same thing to you today?


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Top 10 Books on the Bible’s Historical Background

2/14/2019

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These ten books will get you to stop guessing what Bible verses mean and start grasping the original point made by the authors. These books about Bible backgrounds will introduce you to the cultural context that defined the meaning of words, phrases, and entire genres found in Scripture. If you want to discern how the Bible directs us today, you must first understand how it redirected the conversations and communities in ancient near eastern cultures. So read these books. Process them in community. And refer to them as you study Scripture. I now give to you the top 10 Bible study books about the historical and cultural context of Scripture.


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    Paul Penley's training as a Bible scholar, life as a human being, and work as a philanthropic advisor overflows into this blog

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