What is the Bible? A Unified Story That Leads to Jesus - Tim Mackie

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Detention diary, day 2: “Good Friday behind bars”

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       Lent 2025, day 39.   It wasn’t your typical Good Friday service.   The 15 detainees arrived in the visiting area in waves.   Finally, everyone was assembled and a motley crew began to (ostensibly) commemorate the death of Jesus of Nazareth – Muslims, Sikhs and Christians together, from all around the globe.   Indeed, during this time of prayer and recollection, each individual had a very different experience and understood something uniquely personal.   Isaiah 53 was read in French, the Psalm in English and St. John’s passion narrative in Spanish.   During the “Laments of Christ against his faithless church” [1] , we sung the refrain, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom”.   We ended this liturgical moment by forming a circle, joining hands and offering spontaneous prayers of gratitude to Christ and supplications for each other, each pray-er addressing his God in his language.      Follow...
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“Can dreams come true?” a sermon for PENTECOST 2025 (JUNE 08)

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  “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,     we were like those who dream . Then our mouth was filled with laughter     and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations,    “The Lord has done great things for them.” (Ps. 126.1-2; cf. Ac. 2.11)      Have you ever woken up into a dream?   That’s the feeling expressed in this psalm.   Perhaps it refers to the return of the people of God from exile in Babylon.   The understanding was that the exile had been the result of the people’s sin (cf. Is. 40.1-2).   Have you ever been so happy that all you could do was laugh?   God had restored the fortunes of his people in a totally unexpected way .   The appropriate response was to shout for joy!   The dreamer of this psalm is laughing and cheering, and probably crying.   God came through!     As they say, “sometimes dreams do come true”. ...
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Apologetics & culture wars

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  1: The cross & the conversion of the imagination       The Church of Jesus Christ owes its very existence to “imaginative apologetics”. [1]   While for us, the challenge of apologetics may consist in finding imaginative “parallels” with the tenets of Christian orthodoxy (à la Aslan=Jesus) [2] or techniques to better communicate the gospel, for the apostle Paul, the irreducible content of his message demanded that his audience undergo what Richard B. Hays called “a conversion of the imagination”. [3]   As Paul himself points out, the message of a crucified Lord is an oxymoron, “foolishness” (Gr: moron ) to Greeks and a scandal to Jews (1 Cor. 1.18ff).   In God’s strange providence, Paul’s gospel did indeed accomplish its mission of converting imaginations and lives (cf. 1 Cor. 1.21; 2.1-5). [4]      Indeed, Paul’s gospel was not only logically absurd, it was also politically subversive.   Jesus’ crucifixion had not been...
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