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The New Joshua

The New Joshua

02 Oct , 2015 No Comments

Here’s an incredible quote I read recently from Jean-Louis Ska:

According to John 5, Jesus is the announced Joshua. This is why the Gospels begin on the banks of the Jordan, where the people are still assembled in Deuteronomy 34 when the curtain falls on the Pentateuch and on Moses.

Allow me to briefly unpack this.

First, how is Jesus like Joshua? The most obvious answer is that they are two versions of the same name. But as Ska references above, here is what Jesus says about Himself in John 5:

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Redeeming Pleasure Officially Releases Today!

15 Sep , 2015 No Comments

Jeremy Jernigan - Redeeming PleasureI have been waiting for today for years. Actually, almost two decades. Back in high school I felt the desire to address a false choice I watched so many people make between God and pleasure. Either follow God and forsake all fun, or enjoy life and leave God behind. But what if our search for pleasure mirrored our search for God? And what if we could actually show people that through God we experience life to the full?

I hope that this will encourage a believer in their faith through perspectives that may be unfamiliar. I’m convinced there’s a need for a fresh conversation about God in our post-Christendom culture and I’ve done my best to contribute my voice to it. It’s also my hope that this book will offer refreshing perspectives to nonbelievers and will serve as a catalyst in shifting their view of God. God is even better than they’ve ever imagined! Through logical arguments as well as Scripture, I work throughout the book to unpack topics like sex, alcohol, entertainment, and much more, including our views of God. It is a theology for everybody.

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Why Jesus Had a Beard

Why Jesus Had a Beard

14 Sep , 2015 No Comments

In case you’ve ever wondered why Jesus had a beard, the above illustration explains.

Source: Red Jaw Cartoons

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"People have a tendency to stop thinking when it first becomes difficult; and it is at that point, I would add, that thinking becomes fruitful. A man senses that the resolution of the questions before him demands labour—and he wants to evade this. If he had no means of stupefying himself, he would be unable to drive the questions out of his consciousness, and he would be forced, against his will, to resolve them. Instead of this, however, he has found means to drive the questions away as soon as they arise. As soon as the questions demanding resolution begins to torment him, he resorts to these means and so avoids the anxiety they evoke. His consciousness ceases to demand a resolution, and the unresolved questions remain unresolved until the next moment of clarity. But at this next moment of clarity he does exactly the same; often he remains entire months, years or even his whole life, confronted by the same moral questions, failing to take even one step towards their resolution. And yet it is the resolution of moral questions that constitutes the movement of life."

Leo Tolstoy, The Lion and the Honeycomb
Eleanor’s Prayer

Eleanor’s Prayer

09 Sep , 2015 No Comments

In addition to being married to FDR (and being the longest serving First-Lady of the US), Eleanor Roosevelt worked to further justice in the world in her lifetime. In fact, Harry Truman called her the “The First Lady of the World” because of her human rights work. According to the book The Grand Paradox, Eleanor had a prayer she prayed each night that went like this,

Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far-off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to [You] for strength. Deliver us from fretfulness and self-pitying: make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of a world made new.

There’s a lot to love about this prayer, and I encourage you to use it if it resonates with you. One line in particular stands out to me: “Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to [You] for strength.”

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Redeeming Pleasure Message

31 Aug , 2015 No Comments

Here’s the message I gave this weekend on my book Redeeming Pleasure. It’s my best attempt at narrowing the entire book down into one message. We were able to get 1000 early copies of the book to sell and we had less than a dozen left after the weekend was over! It was a great way to celebrate the launch of the book with my church family. It officially launches September 15.

And even if you don’t have time to watch the entire thing, make sure to check out what happens at the 32 minute mark. It’s worth the watch…

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