Matthew 5:38-48 Dear Partner, Ahh, the temptations we preachers are going to feel as we read this difficult passage! I’ve preached it enough, and you probably have to, to be familiar with at least two of them. The first will be to not take it seriously. I call this the “Lutheran temptation” simply because when Lutherans get to really difficult says from Jesus, we tend to assume that Jesus didn’t really expect us to do these things, only to remind us of our inability to satisfy God’s commands so that we might flee to Jesus for forgiveness and grace. While I’m not sure this actually reflects Luther’s thought, some of his...

After the post on the origins of the “It’s Pentecost” video went up, my creative partner-in-crime Ben Cieslik directed me to the actual Pete Rollins quote that inspired our work. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I’d seen this video, so I’ve probably been misquoting him second-hand for years! In any event, I thought I’d post the video below. As is often the case when I listen to Pete, I have two reactions. The dominant one is a sense of gratitude and appreciation for how he regularly frames the message of the gospel in a compelling and surprising way that therefore not only gets my attention and but stays with me. Often...