Regnum Caelorum

A Life Story Frederick Buechner This is one of the more intriguing books I've read recently. As you might imagine from the cover, it's a book about Jesus, and throughout the book, he's giving us a portrait of his "face"--his presence among us. Buechner is a wonderful writer, and his prose is simply filled with beautiful descriptions of certain aspects of his life and ministry for us. For instance, referring to Jesus' statement, "as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me," he writes, "Just as Jesus appeared at his birth as a helpless child that the world was free to care for or destroy, so now he appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger: [he] appears in every form of human need that world is free to serve or ignore" (p. 92). It is pure joy at times just to read his prose and fall in love with the Christ who saved our souls. Yet at other times, he seems to toss that faith to the winds....

How Jesus Wants to Change the World Allen Mitsuo Wkabayashi There are lots of books on the Kingdom of God out there to read. Most of them are either highly academic and difficult to read or they simply have poor view of the kingdom of God. This book is probably the first book with great kingdom theology that is accessible to just about any reader who would be interested in reading about the kingdom of God. The basic premise of the book is that the gospel is bigger than what we give it credit for. We tend to think of it as what we need to believe to get to heaven, but such thinking (as true as it is) alone does not compel us to live a life of mission. Allen is seeking to give us a fuller picture of the kingdom (or, better, reign) of God--that God "has broken into history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The blessings, power and justice of the future kingdom of God have reached back into the present and taken root in our world" (p. 145). God's reign in this wo...

Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story Craig G. Bartholomew Michael W. Goheen There are lots of ways to talk about the teachings of the Bible. Most often the teachings are summarized in terms of systems of doctrine. This books is an attempt to organize the Bible in terms of acts of a Biblical drama. The Bible is a grand story, a drama of redemption in which the world was created good to reflect his glory, but mankind sinned and caused the fall both of our human nature and the world we live in. The Scriptures are the drama of God's redemption not only of us, but of the world we live in. Every single one of us has a story--our lives are in the process of telling a story. Yet we also view ourselves as being situated within a larger story--a story from which we derive meaning for our lives and interpret what happens in the world. "Basic stories are in principle normative --they define starting points, ways of seeing what is true--and they are comprehensive , since they gi...

A Breviary of Sin Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. Finally a book about sin that refuses to limit itself to abstract formulations of theological terms. Finally a book about sin that surfaces then inner recesses of the heart to demonstrate in concrete terms the reality of the sinfulness behind all our thoughts, words and deeds. The most helpful aspect of this book, I believe, is the way he fleshes out his definition of sin as a disruption of shalom . When a boy steals a radio for instance, there is a sense in which the boy has broken God's law, and there's a sense in which that act reveals his pride and selfishness. Plantinga's work shows that his act as well demonstrates the fact that the boy considered his desire for that radio as more imporant than the shalom of his classroom. Sin is what vandalizes the shalom of the world. It seeks to disrupt and introduce chaos into the created order. From the initial sin of Adam and Eve to the ways we continue to sin individually, cor...

I was having lunch with other missionaries on a mission compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was enjoying getting to know these men and women that had given their lives in the service of the gospel in one of the poorest countries in the world. I was there with my friend Elias, and we were sharing with another missionary about the disabilities conference we were putting on for the churches in Addis. Joni Erickson Tada had come with us to Ethiopia to help us make the church aware of the need to reach out and care for those with disabilities among them. My role in the conference was to be a photographer and instructor on how the Bible calls us to serve “the least of these” among us. I told my new friend, “The conference is designed to equip churches with what they need to be able to serve the disabled all around them.” The missionary’s response was quite surprising: “Well, it’s all well and good to care for the poor and disabled, but that’s not the ministry of the church. The mini...

Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix Brian D. McLaren I liked this book a whole lot more than I expected to. It offers a very engaging challenge to those who would want to package evangelism into diagnostic questions, canned illustrations or five point outlines. He likens it to a dance. It "begins with something beyond yourself," and "over time, your whol life begins to harmonize to the song. It's rhythm awakens you; its tempo moves you, so you resonate with its tone and flow with its melody. The lyric gradually convinces you that the entire world is meant to share in this song with its message, its joy, its dance" (pp. 15-6). McLaren understands that it is the gospel itself, and the transformation that occurs in us by God's Spirit that motivates our engagement with unbelievers. And he undestands that the hope of the gospel is more than just the conversion of the sinner--the entire cosmos (not the sum total of all people in the world) is suppo...

Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd Edition C. E. Hill Welcome to my theological blog page. The title Regnum Caelorum , meaning "kingdom of heaven," is taken from an excellent book written by one of my professors about the history and development of millennial thought in the early church. Hill's argument is that, despite popular opinion, there were many in the early church (particularly from the late first to third centuries) that were not "chiliasts" (or premillennialists by today's terminology). These non-chiliasts can be identified because they believed in a heavenly afterlife, as opposed to their chiliast bretheren, all of which believed they would rest in Hades after death. In fact, reading his book makes one believe that chiliasm was a development in early Christianity around the middle of the second century. I highly recommend it to those interested in the history of eschatology in the early church. For an overview of Hill...