Explores God's love as revealed in Christ and how that love frames justice, wrath, judgment, mercy, and salvation.
1Sam.2:6; 2Sam.14:14
He disciplines to improve. No matter how severely He chastens, it is for our good, not harm. Divine chastening, even when it leads to acute suffering and loss, including death, is the pathway to life. For we read that God ‘kills and makes...
1 John 4:18
We are either operating from the fear of punishment that keeps us disconnected from the Father and enslaved to our old, orphan identity and the punishment paradigm (Paul calls it the “flesh”), or we are operating from loving connection...
Do we see scary, messy sinners who deserve hatred and punishment, or do we see sons and daughters for whom the Father sacrificed everything to love and restore? Only when we see the latter can we be trusted to sit down with someone in a...
The church that is going to make Jesus’ love believable is not just a church that moves in signs and wonders and bold gospel preaching and care for the poor. It is the church that has truly become a family. In a family, our mistakes and...
Isa 4:5; Matt 3:3; Lev 16:27; 2 Pet 3:10; Ezek 1:4; Ezek 8:2; Rev 1:14; Rev 4:5
Again, how shallow is the common view of “fire” as only or chiefly a penal agent. “Fire, in Scripture, is the element of ‘life’ (Isa 4:5), of ‘purification’ (Matt 3:3), of ‘atonement’ (Lev 16:27), of ‘transformation’ (2 Pet 3:10), and...
Video interview starts at 7:07 7:58 Brad's journey 13:04 The Deconstruction Journey and the book Out of the Embers 19:03 Experiencing Jesus before conversion 25:30 What about when God seems absent? 46:22 Penal Substitutionary Atonement
Ps. 30:5; 2 Chron. 5:13; Matt. 5:45; Luke 6:35
His anger is for a moment, His mercy is forever vs His mercy is for a moment, His anger is forever.The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God’s anger endures only for a moment, but His love endures forever (Ps. 30: 5; e.g., 2 Chron. 5: 13...
Isa.4:4; 1Cor.5:5; Rom.7:13-25; Heb.12:10
Love is not simply one aspect of God’s character among others, such as wisdom, justice and power: love is the essence of God’s Being, the fount of all His attributes; the motivating principle behind all His works. Love is, as it were, the...
What is Mercy? Mercy is often taught, no… drilled into our psyches, that “God is not giving you what you deserve.” Ever hear that? Ugh! It’s very popular in the more punitive view of the gospel. Yet it is another one of those statements we...
Thus, to deny the absolute universality of Christ’s redeeming sway, as destined to embrace all souls and all things whatsoever, seems no less than to withdraw from the New Testament an essential and vital part of its teaching. For here we...
In this generation, we must combat many misconceptions about the gospel. It is not about getting “saved” so we go to heaven when we die. It is about entering a reconciled relationship with the Father, ourselves, and others and receiving...
Isa 46:9; Rev 1:18
Why has the good news been perverted so much? The message of hell has affected us because... 1. It contradicts the unending, unfailing love of the Father. It perverts the message with the idea that we have to love Him before He will love...
Many think it impossible to square a doctrine of universal reconciliation with the theme of divine judgment that we find not only in Paul, but throughout the Bible generally. For the God of the Bible, they insist, is not only loving and...
John 10:10
Video/Audio Viewing Jesus in all Scripture, and viewing Old Testament Scripture in the light of Jesus. 11:33 Old Testament violence When reading the Old Testament, Is this about Jesus, or is this about us? 14:12 Scripture is not the Word...