Jesus’ insistence that “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:28) is a perennial favorite of many Christians, and rightly so. This saying gets swiftly to the essential thrust of Jesus’ identity and mission
03.15.2010| The Fish Tank | Nick Nowalk
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I have been laboring to demonstrate in this series that Jesus specializes in turning all expectations about his own person and mission wildly upside down. Jesus’ tendency to subversion is often bandied about—even crudely celebrated—in vague fashion by many would-be revolutionary Christian
02.15.2010| The Fish Tank | Nick Nowalk
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“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ
02.1.2010| The Fish Tank | Nick Nowalk
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Throughout the gospel of Matthew there exists a steadily mounting anticipation of Jesus’ coming enthronement as the king of Israel, in fulfillment of the prophetic Old Testament messianic hope. Such an emphasis is obvious, of course, in the central place the “kingdom of God” occupies in Jes
01.27.2010| The Fish Tank | Nick Nowalk
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The earliest Christians who followed Jesus’ teachings and confessed him as Lord (over all!) were thoroughgoing imperialists. All signs point unanimously to this attitude originating with the historical Jesus himself. Centuries earlier the Old Testament prophetic witness, so crucially formativ
01.20.2010| The Fish Tank | Nick Nowalk
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