Tag Archives: discipleship

Review of Taylor’s “Reading Scripture as the Church”

The following is a review of Derek W. Taylor’s Reading Scripture as the Church: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Hermeneutic of Discipleship that I contributed to Studies in Christian Ethics 35(2) (May 2022): 418-421.

Continue reading Review of Taylor’s “Reading Scripture as the Church”

“God’s Unpredictable Plans”

The following is a response I was invited to recently give to chapter 1 of Matt Brough’s forthcoming book Let God Send: Crossing Boundaries and Serving in Christ’s Name.  Matt is the Minister of Word and Sacraments at Prairie Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  He also serves as the Program Coordinator for the New Worshiping Communities Initiative of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Continue reading “God’s Unpredictable Plans”

Gregory Nazianzus on the Pursuit of Wisdom

A rich, but very busy semester has cut into the frequency of my blog postings this year.  However, a spring “snow day” here in Manitoba has provided me with the opportunity to share a quote from the 4th century Church Father Gregory Nazianzus.  I was lecturing on the Cappadocian Fathers last week in my “Reading with the Fathers” class and we will be discussing Gregory’s “Defense of His Flight to Pontus,” as well as his “Last Farewell” (delivered at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D.) this coming week. Continue reading Gregory Nazianzus on the Pursuit of Wisdom

Salvation By Allegiance Alone

In the days ahead, I’m hoping to post a series of reflections on the chapters of Matthew W. Bates’s book Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King.  When I first heard of Bates’s book about a year ago, I knew that it was a title I would have to read.  His main thesis seems to overlap in some significant ways with some of my own thinking emerging from my reflection upon the themes of discipleship, apocalyptic theology, and the pistis Iesou Christou (faith in/faithfulness of Jesus Christ) debate, alongside of my dissertation work on the theologies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Stanley Hauerwas.  Furthermore, the title of the book resonates in some interesting ways with a sermon I preached that will be appearing in a forthcoming book.  In that sermon, based on Romans 1:1-7, I suggest that the Gospel can be understood as “the Neverending Story of King Jesus.” Continue reading Salvation By Allegiance Alone

Eugene Peterson on the Congruence of the Christian Life

“The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence—congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh.” – Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God (New York: Waterbrook, 2017), xviii.