On this episode we discuss various topics related to gender and the Trinity, including: the gendered language about the family of God (i.e. “sons”) and the gendered language for the persons of the Trinity (i.e. Father and Son), the representation of God with maternal imagery in the Bible, and the topic of the Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son (EFS), which is a proxy discussion for a complementarian approach to gender. For this discussion we...
This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at my local church here in Minneapolis—Mill City Church. We’ve been reading through and preaching through the New Testament this year as a church, which in hindsight feels really appropriate in 2020. In this sermon I tried to provide a concise overview of the main issue in Galatians (Should the Gentile males in Galatia be circumcised?) and how Paul addresses it (Nope!). Summarizing a single text...
Here is a recording of a sermon I gave at Bethel University’s chapel during a series on The Very Good Gospel. I focused on how in the gospel we receive God through the person of the Spirit who is our gift and guide in ordinary time. Bethel University Chapel 2019 – John Dunne from Bethel University Chapel on Vimeo.
I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians concerning the body, the temple, and the Holy Spirit. The primary texts are fairly well-known for Bible readers. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:15–17 ESV) “Flee from sexual immorality. Every...
For most followers of Jesus, our observance of Easter this past weekend marked a significant point in our yearly calendar that has been specifically set aside to celebrate the pinnacle of our faith, Jesus’ resurrection and life giving ministry. It’s meant to be a significant pause built into our busy schedules cementing a spiritual rhythm in our own lives, a rhythm that continues to impact us well past the holiday itself. But, if you are...
Enough for him whom cherubim, Worship night and day, A breastful of milk, And a mangerful of hay; Enough for him whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel, Which adore (A Christmas Carol, Christina Rossetti) It’s hard to imagine the King of the universe, the Word of God through which everything has been made, being content with a stomach full of milk, laying in a manger of hay. For the rest of humanity,...
I left my Church this week, and it was the most painful and beautiful thing I have ever done. For many people, Church can be a great source of pain, for others, it is a building or a place to gather. For some, Church can be a crutch, a community that supports them. As for me, my Church has become my family. I don’t even know where to begin my story, as I feel like...
JOHNSON, Luke Timothy. The Revelatory Body: Theology as Inductive Art. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. pp. 256. $25.00 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-0-8028-0383-2. Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Revelatory Body offers the bold thesis that “the human body is the preeminent arena of God’s revelation in the world.”[1] While many will welcome the claim that the human body possesses divine revelatory potential, many others will likely take serious issue with the position that the human body takes preeminence...
“Probably not pastoral.” I scribbled this note in the margins of Book IX of Augustine’s On the Trinity. He was in the middle of some obscure-sounding argument that the Trinity makes sense of the biblical idea that “God is love.” Because the act of love, “involves three things… a person who loves, that which is loved, and love,” we can understand that the Father loves the Son with the love who is the Holy Spirit. These...
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. The story of the prodigal son has inspired hope in countless individuals as they have processed their religious experience. Most sermons have incorporated the passage to be primarily directed at Non-Christians, the lost, the unsaved. Some have included Christians who have wandered away from their faith and are desperate to return. They see the faith of...
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