In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
Yahweh who is pierced and mourned in prophecy is Jesus who is pierced and mourned in fulfillment.
There is indeed a responsibility for the church to share the gospel in the world, but never at the expense of the church’s charity and mercy for those neighbors who are nearby.

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The entire life of believers is one of repentance.
In the beginning I was the Word, and I as Word was the Beginning. By me all things were created, both in the heavens and in the earth, visible and invisible. All things have been created by me and for me (Colossians 1:16). Therefore, already in the opening word of the Hebrew Bible, Bereshith, I am.
I’ve come to realize at the tender age of 47 that sometimes church doesn’t work.
We have violated not that of which we are ignorant, but that of which we are fully aware. If you want proof, simply look at how well we attempt to cover up our evil deeds.
For it is His law I have broken, His office in which I have failed, His people against whom I have sinned. All is from Him, so all I have taken, I have taken from Him. All others against whom I have sinned, I have sinned because they are of Him.
The characterization of Christianity as a philosophy—however counterintuitive—is entirely without warrant. And it is certainly not without precedent.
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
I was asked to write one on Hebrews 4:14-16, to be read on Thursday, February 20. Among the finds that Luke and I discovered this weekend was that meditation.
Apologetics (providing evidence for one’s faith) is a bad word in some circles. In others, apologetics is an entirely negative enterprise: that is, it only tangles up opponents and exposes their intellectual incoherence while refusing to provide positive reasons to believe in Christianity.
The instrument of execution has been changed into an emblem of peace--a hawk become a dove, a sword hammered into a plowshare. Now every time God sees His bow, He who never forgets will nevertheless remember His oath never to draw it again to punish the earth by a cosmopolitan flood.
So the law was shattered, our icon was becoming urine and dung inside our guts, and lots of bloody corpses littered our camp. All this because we decided that it was okay for us to choose how we approach God.
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Theology? Very little. But that won’t stop me from trying to make a connection.