Category Archives: theological

Applying the Resurrection

Posted on April 5, 2010 by PaulVK

It’s the morning after Easter Sunday for preachers and I’m in my office because I read my calendar wrong. 😦 Might as well get some work done. Lots of “he is risen” yesterday, all well meant but part of me … Continue reading →

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"Age of Decay" Is the phrase a downer?

Posted on March 7, 2010 by PaulVK

I posted this on Voices after some comments that the term is depressing. Some in my church recoil at the phrase, but I find it helpful to name the thief that it is. One of the ways I regularly try … Continue reading →

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Is the Tower of Babel story an urban vs. nature story?

Posted on December 23, 2009 by PaulVK

This is from a discussion on CRC-Voices that wandered into the urban vs. rural conflict. Are cities evil? Keller got mentioned so that’s how he got into the argument. Keller inherits the urban ministry work done by Westminster East and … Continue reading →

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Revelation 17: The Beast Consumes the Whore, where the relational polarity of the age of decay always leads

Posted on December 14, 2009 by PaulVK

I’ve been working through the book of Revelation for quite a while now in our Adult Sunday School class. This week we talked about the vision in Revelation 17 of the whore of Babylon and her relationship with the beast. … Continue reading →

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How I navigate the "other religions" issue

Posted on December 11, 2009 by PaulVK

This is from a Calvin-in-Common discussion I was responding to. Maybe a good place to begin is by giving you an idea of what I believe we can safely say as Christians about all people, a subset of all people … Continue reading →

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Do you (like me) presume your god to be less complex than the people you can't get along with?

Posted on December 1, 2009 by PaulVK

Today I listened to one of Tim Keller’s older sermons from the free group recently released on God our Father. Early in the sermon he critiques us as reducing God to a cartoon character, a one dimensional being. He makes … Continue reading →

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How Christian change differs from the way of empire

Posted on November 9, 2009 by PaulVK

This is something I wrote on Calvin-in-Common about an alternative approach toward the conflict regarding the Calvin BOT Memo prohibiting advocacy by Calvin faculty regarding homosexuality. I think often the “pastoral” and the “prophetic” are set against each other as … Continue reading →

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Relational Polarity of God

Posted on November 1, 2009 by PaulVK

A key difference between the Age of Decay and the Age to Come are their relational polarities. CS Lewis in Mere Christianity talks about how God brings us into his very own life. It’s hard to figure out what that … Continue reading →

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Tim Keller's use of identity in his theology

Posted on October 26, 2009 by PaulVK

I originally posted this in Oct of 2006 A key theme that Keller works again and again has to do with the concept of identity. All preachers use what I call pathways. These are ways to easily get from here … Continue reading →

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Why Jesus was indirect with "sinners" and direct with the "righteous"

Posted on October 26, 2009 by PaulVK

This is a repost from June 2007 This was from a Voices discussion about sin and church discipline. 1.   The gravity of sin. It is hard to overstate the calamity, devastation, and bondage that sin is. In my Synoptic Gospels … Continue reading →

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