Opening the Scriptures Then their eyes were opened and they recognized [Jesus], and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ~ Luke 24.31-32 NIV Priorities (James 4) # 4 Life's Ultimate Either-Or David Anguish In the 1830s, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States to observe the new republic and compare it with the European aristocracies. According to...
9 days ago • 7 min read
Resurrection—Our Reason for Celebration David Anguish According to N. T. Wright in his book, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, The question of Jesus’ resurrection lies at the heart of the Christian faith. There is no form of early Christianity known to us—though there are some that have been invented by ingenious scholars—that does not affirm at its heart that after Jesus’ shameful death God raised him to life again. Already by the time of Paul, our earliest written...
16 days ago • 5 min read
Opening the Scriptures Then their eyes were opened and they recognized [Jesus], and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ~ Luke 24.31-32 NIV Priorities (James 4) # 3 Why Are You Fighting? David Anguish An extra sub-heading was added to the original post. This is the corrected copy. Olive Freeman relates that when it came time to serve the cake at a kids’ birthday...
23 days ago • 7 min read
His Actions Speak David Anguish Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” ~ John 14.8–9 "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Opening the Scriptures Then their eyes were opened and they recognized [Jesus], and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ~ Luke 24.31-32 NIV Priorities (James 4) # 2 Murder, Envy, or Metaphor? David Anguish What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
How Dare He!? David Anguish An often cited argument by those who reject orthodox claims of Jesus’s deity alleges that they were later attributions derived from John’s “turn[ing] the merely human prophet of the three Synoptics into the figure Christians worship as God incarnate in human life.” But this alleged “contrast is certainly too stark” (Bauckham 2011, 93). To claim it is to “overestimate the exalted picture of Jesus” in John and to “underestimate the portrait of Jesus in the Synoptics”...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Opening the Scriptures Then their eyes were opened and they recognized [Jesus], and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ~ Luke 24.31-32 NIV Priorities (James 4) # 1 Murder at Church? David Anguish I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion—namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men—should quarrel with such...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
Was Jesus God? Let the Bible Speak David Anguish In 2018, the Pew Research Center released a report under the following headline and summary statement: “When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean? Nine-in-ten Americans believe in a higher power, but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible” (Pew 2018). The first paragraph reports that the number who expressed certainty about belief in God had declined in recent years while the number who said they had...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Opening the Scriptures Then their eyes were opened and they recognized [Jesus], and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ~ Luke 24.31-32 NIV Seeking Wisdom (James 3) # 7 Peace and Those Who Make It, Part 2 Jesus, Righteousness, and Peace David Anguish It follows naturally from the Old Testament’s view of peace that the Messiah would prioritize its establishment. As...
2 months ago • 7 min read