15 results for tag: Kenneth Tanner
The Transgressive God – Kenneth Tanner
There’s no boundary the human God will not violate to sit down at the table with all of us.
Our transgressive God brushes arms with an agent of larcenous Rome as they dip bread from the same bowl of olive oil.
God leans into a woman, listening; places his arm around the penitent’s shoulders as she pours out the secrets of her heart.
This ease at table with sinners does not sit well with those who mistake God for someone who keeps a record of wrongs on an invisible slate, eager to cancel some persons altogether.
The offended confront Jesus about his table manners and in reply he tells them a story.
When God tells a story about ...
A Benediction for Election Season – Kenneth Tanner
May you remember that all politics and all platforms and all borders and all leaders are temporary, are here one day and gone the next. All of these are passing away.
May you resist the temptation to place ultimate trust in any person, policy, party, movement, or nation—even a beautiful idea that is embodied by a nation—because no nation-state is eternal.
May you know that your kingdom is not of this world but of the world that is coming to this world.
May you in the same moment grasp that engagement with the things of this world—not escape from its harsher, darker realities—is the sacrificial pattern of Jesus Christ.
May you ...
December 2023
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Greg Albrecht: Not What Religion Expects – pg. 2
Kenneth Tanner: One-Sided God – pg. 6
Brad Jersak God in Our Image – pg. 7
Prophetic Hope or Partisan Megaphone? Kenneth Tanner
If you are involved in the care of souls please avoid and flee the ever-present temptation to enter the partisan fray of contemporary life in America.
If things get *actually* horrendous (I know things are not well) those who look to men and women of the cloth for comfort and direction and wisdom need to be able to trust you.
They will not be able to trust you—even if they cannot consciously perceive or articulate a lack of trust—if you have been a shrill and (more or less) unending megaphone for the left or right or whatever cause célèbre replaces Jesus Christ.
Trust is earned by consistently elevating the person of Jesus Christ (as much as ...
Awaiting the Arrival: Love, Power or Nothing – Kenneth Tanner
You either believe that the end is the arrival of power, or you believe that the end is the arrival of nothing, or you believe that the end is the arrival of love.
A lot of people believe we are waiting for the arrival of nothing. At the end of their physical life, the person they were is gone forever, disappearing as quickly as the brain cells die, never to return. This is also how they see the end of everything and everyone else. Sooner or later it's all going dark. No ultimate justice. No ultimate mercy. No ultimate meaning. Nothing.
Many more people believe we are waiting for the arrival of power, a power that imposes its will on everything and ...
The Good & Beautiful Shepherd – Kenneth Tanner
Middle Eastern shepherds in the time of the Bible did NOT break the legs of sheep and carry them on their shoulders to keep them from running away again, or “hold them close to their heart” or whatever myth you heard growing up.
It’s terribly impractical, for one thing. Sheep can weigh up to 75 pounds. It’s a tremendous hindrance to properly caring for the whole flock. It can also permanently disable the sheep.
Imagine having a number of immobilized or broken sheep in a flock. What a mess that would be.
The rod of the shepherd was used to defend the flock from predators, not beat the sheep. And the hooked staff was ...
December 2018
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Brad Jersak: Advent, Arrival, Appearance– pg. 1
Eden Jersak: Arrival of Hope– pg. 3
Brad Jersak: Arrival of Peace – pg. 4
Laura Urista: Arrival of Joy – pg. 6
Kenneth Tanner: Arrival of Love – pg. 8
Greg Albrecht: Kingdom of Heaven – pg. 8
Larry Parsley: J.B. Roane and the Case of the Belated Apology – pg. 12
Steve Stewart: Pure and Wonderful Grace – pg. 14
Brad Jersak: “What Lesson Is God Teaching Me?” -pg. 15
Is the Lord Among Us? Ken Tanner
As Christians, we do not live in denial about the downsides of existence. We do not deny the presence of evil as pestilence, or of evil as a lack of what is good and sustaining for us as creatures, nor do we ever imagine that these depravations are needed by God to bring about the good in us or in creation (please do not listen to teachers who who say such things).
So while squarely facing the realties (with the spectrum of emotions different people feel in troubling times, none of them sinful), we once again hear the first words of the Christian story: Do not be afraid! From within the maelstrom, we trust that the saving hand of God remains with us, ...
April 2018
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Brad Jersak: Why Did Jesus Die? – pg. 3
Kenneth Tanner: Lazarus' Story is the World's Story – pg. 6
Greg Albrecht: The Church: It's the People, Not the Steeple – pg. 9
Stephen Crosby: The Cleansing of the Temple: Did Jesus Sanction Violence? – pg. 12
Greg Albrecht: “Who's Going to Heaven?” -pg. 15
God demands no curtain call (Matt. 23:1-12) – Kenneth Tanner
Matt. 23:1-12 - A warning against attention-seeking
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
"The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people's shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, ...
The Saving, Triune God at the Jordan River – Kenneth Tanner
Forget about explanations and analogies for the Trinity (at least for a moment). Better to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus' disciples down a dusty path to the Jordan. There, among the tall reeds on the bank stands Jesus, who has just walked there from Nazareth, his feet tired, sore, and dirty. Jesus wades in ankle deep. The cool, flowing water is soothing. From here he watches his human brothers and sisters descend one by one, waist-deep, faces drawing near to John the Baptist.
They are entering the water to be cleansed, to repent. Jesus has no need for the cleansing, or the change of heart and mind, and yet here he is, his human face set toward ...
Christ is a Walking, Talking Tree of Life, a Cross in Motion – Kenneth Tanner
"Christ is a walking, talking Tree of Life, a cross in motion, and everywhere he wanders healing comes to the world." - Fr. Kenneth Tanner
2 Sam. 7:1-14a
1After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”
4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:
5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build ...
A Season of Unfortunate Events? Superstition vs. the Gospel – Kenneth Tanner
Enduring a season of unfortunate events? Does God seem absent or aloof? Feel as though you have fallen out of favor with God?
Many of us grew up with Christian pastors, teachers, friends, and spiritual guides who taught by osmosis that if things were going wrong in our lives or the lives of others—if life was not one moment of glory followed by another—there were two possible answers: either we were not doing all the right things or we were not believing all the right things. A lack of faith, a misstep here or there, results in hardships and divine disfavor.
Most people call this superstition. What it is not is the gospel.
It’s ironic that for ...
Lazarus’ Story is the World’s Story – Kenneth Tanner
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Lazarus' Story is the World's Story
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