The church’s inclusive invitation and exclusive truth claims have prompted resistance from religious and secular alike. When it comes time to prove the power of this message, however, the ancient church’s evidence is the same as ours: healed lives.
Why are we the way we are? Why are we filled with potential, but also profoundly struggle? Why do we have a strong urge for freedom, but also find ourselves sometimes stuck? The famous story of Adam and Eve’s seduction in the garden is the place to go to discover answers to these questions and find hope.
Jesus came to serve not the religious, but the relegated, not those in possession of might, but those in want of mercy. The figure “Blind Bartimaeus” provides us a model for how realizing our need for Christ’s mercy lies at the very root of our faith transformation.
While it’s important to appreciate the Bible as a work of literature, there’s something about it that’s also very different, unique even. What is that characteristic and how can it help us enjoy the Bible and even find it to be a powerful tool of transformation in our lives?
Grace, once received, makes us children again—God’s children, who are adopted into his family, made heirs to his kingdom, and united with all believers by the freedom of the gospel.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus invites us to experience the transformation of his love through our senses, encountering the sound of the Law, the vision of the gospel, and the feeling of grace as it frees us from broken places in our life.