Love the oppressed, but also the oppressor?

You may remember that in the previous post on Jesus’ inaugural sermon, we noted how he stressed his vocation as embodying proclamation, justice and compassion. Well, here is the Lukan Jesus embodying all three of these at the same time in a genius way. In Luke 18:35-19:11, there is a “Lukan sandwich” concerning the Blind

The Restoration Movement, Acapella & the Trinity

I am glad to be a part of the Restoration Movement – and in particular – the Church of Christ. But though there is much to praise about its history, like all movements, we have our ‘not so impressive’ moments and ways of thinking as well. The most frustrating of which is the oft inability

My [Ryan’s] Top Books of 2015

My brothers and I have long been keeping track of the books we read every year for the purpose of looking back and discerning which books had the deepest effect on our thinking and way of life. The following is brief recap of the most important books to me this year (note that not all

Re-thinking the Nativity scenes with Kenneth Bailey

Top-notch Biblical scholar + living in the Middle East for over 50 years + speaking Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and Syriac + a love for contextual truth and relevance = Sheer genius (aka Kenneth Bailey). So when Kenneth says something about the context of Jesus’ life and words – as he does a lot here –