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One of the greatest challenges to understanding the message of Jesus is knowing how to categorize him as a speaker.  When those first audiences gathered, who did they think they were going to hear?   A teacher?  A philosopher?  A political leader?  Or something else?

In this fifth installment in the Next Steps into the Gospels course we examine Jesus’ rhetorical genre and identify him as an “apocalyptic prophet” – one who comes to proclaim God’s word to his people, one with a message that God is bringing the present age to it’s conclusion and ushering in the new era of salvation.

Continuing my journey into the world of blogging, I’m setting up a podcast.  Mostly I’ll be loading recordings of courses I teach, but as I get more used to the process I’ll hopefully be able to add some special episodes and perhaps even an interview or two.

Please bear with me as I figure out the technology.  The behind the scenes stuff comes with a whole new vocabulary and a giant set of checkboxes.  I plan to wreak some havoc for a while, so if the internet crashes, you’ll know whom to blame.

First up will be my latest IPC course:  Next Steps into the Gospels.

This is actually an introductory course on the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) trying to understand the message and ministry of Jesus.  If you’ve ever felt as though Jesus is inconsistent, frustrating, or just plain confusing, I think this will help a great deal.

In the course we’ll examine the world of 1st century Judaism into which Jesus’ entered, how to interpret his message of the kingdom of God, his teaching, his use of parables, and his acts of power.  We’ll also look at the crucifixion both historically and theologically and how the church understands the resurrection.

I hope it’s of help!

They say every entrepreneur should have an “elevator pitch” – a cogent distillation of all the research and planning that has gone into the new business that can be given in less time than an elevator ride.  And I fear that if someone were to ask me, during daylight hours, for a similar distillation of Christianity, I would fail miserably.  I’m terrible at short answers, and it’s likely that – without realizing it – I’d be reviewing the history of the Ancient Near East, paraphrasing Plato, quoting Augustine, and suggesting books by N.T. Wright (I would, of course, stop the elevator so I had time to explain the nuances!).

But, as I am writing this at 1:12 AM, I can answer in a word:  love.  For, when all is said and done, I have found no other explanation for the world as I know it – in all its beauty, complexity, pain, and hope – than the vision of love that I believe stands at the center of the biblical story.

And I realize, even as I write this, that it sounds tremendously naïve.  Read just the table of contents of any history textbook, and there appears evidence galore that love is hardly the name of the game.  And this is true even if it is a book on religious history… Continue reading