Atonement: I’ve Got a Problem–But So Do You
As I mentioned a couple days ago, I had a chance to listen to the Roger Olson interview on Homebrewed Christianity’s podcast. He articulated something that I’ve heard from quite a number of...
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Judgment & the Story of Israel
Atonement is tricky. On Thursday I was wrestling with the giving of Jesus by the Father in comparison to the self-giving God of more developed Trinitarian thought. Part of the challenge is that the...
View ArticleCan’t God Just Forgive?
When people wrestle with atonement theology (i.e., how does the cross, in particular, bring about forgiveness of sins), the objection to atonement theology as a whole is sometimes voiced: why can’t God...
View ArticleAt Work in Your Midst
Ever pray for God to be at work in a situation, in a place, in a relationship, in a church? I’m pretty sure I have. And it never much occurred to me that I might be doing something exceedingly...
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Freedom from Sin
When the Bible talks about the work of Jesus, it uses an abundance of metaphors. We sometimes get ourselves stuck. We have an idea of what it means to confess that Jesus “died for our sins,” and we...
View ArticleDoes Mercy Seat Work for You?
How do we understand what Jesus is on the cross? Romans 3:25 speaks of Jesus as a hilasterion. This is translated in some versions as “sacrifice of atonement,” in others as “a propitiation,” and now...
View ArticleAtonement Begins… When?
Tony Jones is hosting a series of guest posts on the atonement in the lead-up to Good Friday and Easter. Mine is there today: “Jesus died for our sins.” Often, the problem with this core piece of our...
View ArticleOur Sin in God
Karl Barth, thoughts on our sin and God, appropriate for Holy Saturday: It is His heart, not ours, which is suffering when we think that we are the sufferers and that we have a right or obligation to...
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Atonement & Martyrdom
Increasingly, the idea of atonement is a tough one for folks to grab hold of. “Jesus died for our sins” is not only subject to lots of interpretation and reinterpretation. One of the questions we have...
View ArticleSacrificial Salvation
Yesterday we took a look at the martyrdom of seven brothers and their mother in 2 Maccabees, using it to help us put together a story of how early Jewish people might imagine atonement being made for...
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God Crucified?
On Sunday we were listening to Nadia Bolz Weber doing her “Lutheran theology rocks” thing in an interview at Wild Goose. (Seriously, folks, she is living out the law/gospel, simul justus et peccator...
View ArticleJesus’ Trial in Luke
What does it take to have a trial? Charges? Witnesses? Defense? Verdict? Jesus’ hearing before the Jewish authorities in Luke’s Gospel is conspicuously lacking in these things. In Luke 22:66-71, Jesus...
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Did God Kill Jesus? Book Review
Did God kill Jesus? This is the title question of a book on the cross in the New Testament by Tony Jones (HarperOne 2015). The provocative title underscores that what we say about the death of Jesus...
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Did God Kill Jesus? by Tony Jones Book Review (Pt. 2)
Tony Jones‘ Did God Kill Jesus? has been sitting around my house for a month or two as I’ve been working my way through it in spurts. The provocative title has gotten the attention of my seven-year old...
View ArticlePower, Grace, and the Cross of Christ
Back when I decided to name this blog “Storied Theology” one big idea was consuming my field of vision: how we tell the Christian story matters. I have never been more convinced of that than over the...
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