517 results for tag: Brad Jersak
Q&R with Brad Jersak – “Do ECT & PSA hold any theological merit for you?”
QUESTION
Do ECT (eternal conscious torment) and PSA (penal substitutionary atonement theory) hold any theological merit for you?
RESPONSE
Only in that some of my brothers and sisters hold these views and I believe we’re meant to continue in fellowship around our shared love for Jesus. I only wish that more Christians who hold those views felt the same way. When these positions are held as essential dogmas necessary for salvation, they too easily become a cause for breaking fellowship (in the name of 'faithfulness').
QUESTION
So, is fellowship the best way to treat a theology that was born out of the Genesis 3 disease?
RESPO...
Salvation: Three Perspectives (Transactional, Unilateral, Reciprocal) – Brad Jersak
“Salvation”(Gk. soterion – Luke 2:20; 3:6; Acts 28:28; Eph. 6:17; Titus 2:11).Related to: save (sozo); savior (soter).
Remember that moment in Christian history or biblical revelation when the people of God arrived at consensus on what “salvation”meant and how it is achieved?
Me neither.
But amid the roiling ocean of competing ideas, opinions and systems, we can occasionally discern currents—popular themes surface through the cacophony and congeal into doctrinal streams. Allow me to identify three visions of salvation that compete for our attention and form our practices. Indeed, one’s image of salvation ...
A More Christlike Way – Receives Rave Reviews
Brad Jersak’s, A More Christlike Way, published by CWRpress in early 2019, continues to receive rave reviews!
Your ability to introduce the Jesus Way in the context of our current highly politicized world and highly politicized religions, offers us something important and unique. I was certainly challenged to reevaluate my own position on the left-right political spectrum in view of your important warnings against making my politics into a new religion.I don’t know if you’ll see this but I wanted to say that your book helped me a lot....I finished it about a month ago and it brought some things to light that I have held in for ...
“Why her?” On grieving the departed – Brad Jersak
"Why her?" is a common and important lament. Chris Erskine's LA column on that unanswerable question is a masterful and sensitive treatment.
"Why her?" It's a natural cry when we lose someone we love -- someone to whom we ascribe worth -- someone whose life is 'taken' from a family and a community where we still know in our hearts they are needed. It's an important cry of the heart that ought not be squished and cannot be answered ... But having been uttered, some of its toxic assumptions need a sensitive, wise response.
"Why her?" implies a kind of selection process. "Why her and not someone else?" Or "why her at this time?" ...
Q&R: Bumping into unChristlike faith statements – Brad Jersak
Question
I am just reading your book, ‘A More Christlike God’. I have been deconstructing and reconstructing my faith for the past 10-15 years. It’s definitely a work in progress. I am so grateful to people like you who are helping others along. I could, would, never go back.
In our church statement of faith, there is a section that reads:
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the unjust. Those saved through faith in Jesus are fully restored to God into a resurrection of eternal life while the unjust are separated from God's presence into a resurrection of judgment. [John 5:28-29; Matthew 25:31-46]
This does not ...
Can we ‘make’ God love us more or less? – Brad Jersak
"We need to let it soak in that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more…and nothing we can do to make God love us less." - Philip Yancey
"We all need to know that God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good. Nothing humans can do will ever decrease or increase God's eternal eagerness to love." - Richard Rohr
I remember when I first heard these kind of statements and sort of cringed. I was suspicious that those who echoed Philip Yancey or Fr. Richard might employ them to imply, "So it doesn't matter what you do." I don't think I hear Jesus saying, "It doesn't matter what you do," and in fact, that's ...
When Helping Bites – Brad Jersak
Why pets bite their owners
I read an article that offered help to owners of pets (and specifically dogs) that become so aggressive that they bite their owners. They listed many reasons why one's dog can become aggressive. These included:
1. Territorial aggression2. Protective aggression3. Possessive aggression4. Social aggression5. Defensive aggression6. Fear aggression
I was particularly interested in the way a dog may instinctively snap when it is injured. I remember a friend whose dog had a run-in with a porcupine and was left with heavy needles that penetrated into the dog's mouth through it's cheeks. We couldn't remove them without ...
Q&R with Brad Jersak: Do only Christians Love with Agape (1 John 4:16)
Question
Many years ago, I said to a fundamentalist that according to 1 John 4:16 and according to what Jesus says at the Last Supper, loving one another is itself participating in the life of God because God is Love. I think that you made a similar point in A More Christlike Way. The response that I got was that agape referred specifically to the love that is only possible after receiving the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is not possible for non-believers love in that way. What you have to say about that?
Response
First, let's read 1 John 4:16 in context:
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. ...
Q&R: Why listen to abusive preachers? Don’t! Brad Jersak
Question
I used to listen to a podcast preacher every day on my way to work but I really don't know why because I always felt beaten up after listening to it. I think it was that I thought he was speaking God's word so I had no choice but accept everything he said.
Response
I have asked people about why they regularly attend churches or listen to preachers who scold them week after week. These preachers are typically leading rapidly growing mega-churches with skinny-jeans, neo-Calvinist preachers who are very hip but continually harangue the congregation ...
From a local pulpit in my region, I heard this (via a recording): "You ...
Q&R: The N.T. Mercy Seat & Sacrifice – Brad Jersak
Question
I am still working my way through the shift from atonement and sacrifice to forgiveness from sin. I like what you say about Jesus reconciling us to God through intercession resulting in forgiveness. However, I would like you to comment on the Scriptures that refer to atonement and sacrifice. In 1 John 4:10, it says God sent Jesus to be “an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
The other is Hebrews 9:22 “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” I have the NIV. Chapter 10 also talks about Jesus' sacrifice.
Response
1 John 4:7: says that Jesus is the hilasterion for our sins. What is ...
May 2021
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(PDF Format)
Articles:
What Is and Who Is the Church? – pg. 1
Break It Up – pg. 2
My Two "Moms" – pg. 5
Buzzy – pg. 7
Quotes & Connections – pg. 8
Q&R with Brad Jersak – “Is 1 Corinthians 3 a judgment of believers? Or everyone?”
Question
I’m hung up on one word in 1 Corinthians 3.
“If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” 1 Corinthians 3:14-15 ESV
Here’s my hang-up: if the foundation referenced here is Christ, is Paul speaking only to believers? This is nagging me and keeping me from accepting the universality of God’s grace wholeheartedly (or maybe, whole-headedly is a more apropos word).
Response
Good question. I would certainly not want to make ...
Q&R: Blessings & Curses – Deut. 11:26-28 Brad Jersak
Question
I'd like to know if there is somewhere you have addressed Deut. 11:26-28? I've heard you say that God let His people tell the story. But what about God promising blessing or judgment on the land, based on their obedience to Him?
Response
I have not written on this text before. Let's look at it together;
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse—the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods,&...
Q & R: Did God the Father Forsake Jesus on Good Friday? Brad Jersak
Question: In the movie, The Shack, Papa says that God never forsook Jesus. But that appears to be exactly what Jesus says in the Bible. When Jesus says this, is he (the man) talking to himself (the God part)? We are told that Christ is fully God and fully man even though apparently there were things that he did not know, but the Father did (e.g. the time of his return).
Response: That's a common belief for sure, but where does it come from? We developed a whole doctrine of God-forsakenness from one verse! "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" and we took off from there.
What we fail to remember is that ...
“It Is Finished”: The Cross as our Cosmic Axis – Brad Jersak
“Tetelestai,” cried Jesus, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
God’s redemptive plan, which began its arc in ages past, comes to its telos—its end-goal, its climax, it fulfillment—on the Cross. The “Lamb slaughtered from the foundation of the cosmos” (Revelation 13:8), now dying in space-time history under Pontius Pilate, calls out, “It is finished! Accomplished!” Christ knows this by revelation—Abba’s sure response to the cry of dereliction (Matthew 27:46), for God heard and answered him (Hebrews 5:7).
“Tetelestai,” whispered Abba to his beloved Son, “It is finished! Accomplished!”
And thus, the Cross became the axis ...
That hopeless (?) other thief – Brad Jersak
Mark 10
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”39 “We can,” they answered.Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my ...
April 2021
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(PDF Format)
Greg Albrecht: When Jesus Rode into Town– pg. 2
Laura Urista: The Heart of the Matter– pg. 4
Ed Dunn: Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled– pg. 5
Brad Jersak: Pastoral Perspective – pg. 7
Why Did Jesus Die? – Brad Jersak
Tom Wright, in his book, The Day the Revolution Began, struck a nerve with the candor of his critique of any gospel that implies, “God so hated the world that he killed his only Son.” Of course, laying bare that image of God draws charges of strawmanning – but if Wright is wrong, then I will rejoice when evangelists stop communicating that very impression. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is far more beautiful than what Wright terms the “paganized” message of wrath-appeasement through divine violence. But Evangelical children of the Reformation have been so conditioned with this ethos of ...
Q&R with Brad – “Does God have enemies?”
Question
Does God have enemies?
Response
What a fascinating question, and one I have thought about both theologically and personally. To answer it biblically, I am drawn to two important texts:
Matthew 55:44 - “Love your enemies.”Romans 5:10 - “For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son...”
What both these verses show us is that enmity—the disposition of being an enemy, in opposition, or hostile toward—can be one-sided.
While God’s enemies (or ours) are those who have chosen to hate, mistreat, or even kill God’s Son (or God’s children), God refuses to be ...
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