Oznaka: Jesus

Primacy of Discipleship

How can we know that discipleship is really the first, the most important call that comes from God to people, including and especially to “believers”? That it is the primary lens through which we can and must view everything “Christian”?

Jesus and the New Testament speak of disciples all the time, but only three times of “Christians”. When Jesus calls a man, he always calls him to follow him – as his disciple. Those from the wider crowd who need a miracle from him he calls to faith, but those who are to be or who want to be close to him personally he calls to discipleship, to the life of a disciple. The former is evangelism, the latter is life in the new covenant with God.

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Jesus’ New Family

In what follows I would like to explore Jesus’ view on the subject of the family with its intimate ties and obligations, from the viewpoint of the radical newness of the kingdom of God that he is ushering in. In doing this I will have to challenge the contemporary conviction which is prevalent among Evangelical and also Catholic Christians and is even unquestionably held as “biblical”, namely that Jesus and his disciples put family life in the first place, higher than any other active social tie or engagement.

I want to approach this as a study of relevant sayings of Jesus on this matter as found in the Gospels, and then supplement it with passages from Pauline corpus and from other New Testament letters. This latter evidence is obviously secondary, but as we can safely assume, the apostolic writings maintain and echo many of the “Jesus traditions”, so their testimony can be used as an auxiliary source and a means of clarification of what Jesus taught on the subject, as well as evidence how the first generations of Christians put his teachings into practice in the early communities.

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The Language of Revelation and Church Attendance

Regardless of what recently happened (or didn’t happen) in the Church of Sweden (see a “fake news” in The Guardian and a correction in The Local), the tendency to stop calling God “Father” or “Lord” is there, as we can see for example in the “Bibel in gerechter Sprache”. This begs a broader question: can revelation really be completely divested of the language in which it was given?  Nadaljuj z branjem “The Language of Revelation and Church Attendance” →

Basic Form of the Church

The answer to the question “What is the Church?” may seem obvious, but as soon as we attempt to provide a precise reply, we see that the matter is not as simple as it might appear. There are different, even opposing ideas of what the Church is supposed to be, how it is established, and what is its essence and main task in the world. The whole vision of Christian life and action, and the way it is organised, depends on this. We are dealing with the key question of how Christians are to exist and act in the contemporary world, how we are to relate to one another and how we are to carry out the mission “to the end of the earth” entrusted to us.

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Dear Mohammed, who is Jesus?

This is my response to an Islamic critique of the christian view of Jesus, which I had received from a certain Mohammed on my Facebook page devoted to Jesus. Later I found out that it was just a copy of a standard Muslim polemical tract on the subject. I have written my response in the light of the New Testament and the affirmations found in the Qur’an.

Dear Mohammed!

Thank you for asking the most important question of all – who is Jesus. Thank you also for sharing an Islamic view on this all-important subject Nadaljuj z branjem “Dear Mohammed, who is Jesus?” →