money is so stupid and unnecessary we’re meat creatures on a rock floating in space and our entire lives are dominated by little bits of paper
(Source: an-egg, via bluereyes)
Anonymous asked: That's a really great explanation but why crucifixion? Could he have died in another way and still saved us from the penalty of sin which was death?
Perhaps he could have died another way, but God decreed that it would be by crucifixion. Crucifixion represents that in Christ’s death, he was bearing the wrath of God for the sins of humanity. In Galatians 3:13 Paul says “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” He is quoting Deuteronomy 21:22-23 which says that anyone who is “hanged on a tree” is “cursed by God”. On top of this, we see in Isaiah 53 that the Crucifixion was prophesied hundreds of years before it happened. Christ was crucified for our sins, and bore the wrath of God in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
Anonymous asked: as a gay christian THANK YOU for being a decent person. i love jesus so much, and am so thankful to him for everything but honestly the lack of compassion in christian culture makes me sad. it's not some us vs. them thing, it's about loving your brothers and sisters.
This is an encouraging message to receive. I’m glad that you feel welcome here. I agree that the Christian culture does seriously lack compassion. Historically speaking the church has always cared for the downtrodden and for those that they probably disagreed with. Christ always ministered to and was present in the lives of the “sinners” but never condoned their sin. The same is true today, he loves me and is present in me, and yet does not condone my sin. If we are really being “conformed into the image of the Son” through communing with him in his death and resurrection, then our lives should look as much like his as they can. This means loving those we may disagree with.
Be blessed friend!
-Brandon
Anonymous asked: hi revelation19..i just want to ask you this question since you have a lot of knowledge about God..why did Jesus have to be crucified on the cross? dont get me wrong, i love jesus and i believe in him.. whenever i ask other people about that, they would always say that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. but would he really have to be crucified and suffered on the cross? yes.. God already planned it but isnt it enough that He preached the gospel? why wud he have to experience dat?
This is a really great question. Basically, Christ died on the cross not only to save us from our sins, but to save us from the penalty of our sins. The Apostle Paul says that “the wages of sin is death”. When we sin we are in essence rebelling against God. We are telling God that we think we know how to achieve fulfillment better than he does and that we think we can do a better job at being the God of our lives than he can. And we all do this every single day. Now, God is a holy and just God who cannot allow crimes to go unpunished, and since humans are the ones who are committing these sins, it has to be a human to pay the penalty. But no mere human can pay the penalty for the sins of all human kind, only God can do that. So God came down from heaven in the flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life so that he could give us his righteousness and he died on the cross to take upon himself the penalty that was due to us for our sins. Basically he traded his righteousness for our sin and the wrath that should have been on us. Christ had to die on the Cross because the wages of sin is death.
Be blessed,
-Brandon
Somehow I made it out okay…
And my first year of seminary is in the bag.
“You can always see who’s a legalist because he can’t laugh at himself. He’s the one going around saying, ‘That’s not funny.’” — Timothy Keller (via jspark3000)
(via desertmanian)
Authority and Exegesis in the Medieval period:
Authority and the role of scripture coincide in the middle ages.
When the reformation came, views of the Bible changed entirely. The exegetical methods used, the way it was viewed. Luther and Calvin were wrestling original language studies, grammar, context. They were doing grammatical historical exegesis. People saw this as a huge shift from the medieval exegetes. Some say that the Reformation breaks with the medievals and takes us down a path that ends with the Liberal schools with their higher critical historical method. But the problem is that they are saying that the reformers were setting up a higher critical method. So the current reformed understanding of scripture hasn’t gone far enough.
So is this an accurate understanding of the reformers and is it an accurate understanding of the Medieval period? Were the reformers really breaking from the Medievals that radically? Well… no.
Calvin was focused on understanding Christ in the text and God’s revelation of Christ in the text…. So how do you get from that to German liberalism? What really sets up the rise of german liberalism is not the reformers, but the enlightenment.
