Author Archives: A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green

Thinking About The Atonement (2)

This much everyone agrees with—Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). But what exactly does that mean? How did His death bring us life? Here is the atonement in four parts.  1.  Jesus honored God and His purpose in creating man fully and completely. He lived to do His Father’s will in a way that no oneContinue reading “Thinking About The Atonement (2)”

The Cross: Punishment or Suffering?

Did God punish Jesus at the cross? When you put it that way it sounds rather stark, doesn’t it? I think there would be unanimous agreement that God didn’t punish Jesus for anything He personally did. He had no sin (Hebrews 4:14ff). But after this, there would be some significant divergence. There would be more thanContinue reading “The Cross: Punishment or Suffering?”

A Roman Cross and a Jewish Carpenter (2)

If you take this political/religious template and lay it over the New Testament, it opens another dimension of understanding. Jesus’ birth becomes a political event. He was born to overthrow Rome. Not in the civil sense of occupying an earthly throne, but in the sense that He was to be everything Rome was pretending to be.Continue reading “A Roman Cross and a Jewish Carpenter (2)”

A Roman Cross and a Jewish Carpenter (1)

We’re accustomed to thinking about the gospel in terms of the conflict and conquering experienced by Jesus. Whether His opponent was Satan, death, or sin, Christ met with and triumphed over them all. We’ve traveled down the paths of Scripture that develop these truths many times and have benefitted greatly from the journey. But thereContinue reading “A Roman Cross and a Jewish Carpenter (1)”

You Can Be Good Without God (2)

The new atheism is like a lot of things wearing the label—there’s really nothing new about it. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, the late Christopher Hitchens, and others are simply this generation’s militant atheists. There are to their time what Madelyn Murray O’Hare or Robert Ingersoll was in their day. They’re churning up the same arguments and objections toContinue reading “You Can Be Good Without God (2)”

You Can Be Good Without God (1)

That was the headline of a recent article that appeared in the USA Today’s religious column. It was written by Jerry Coyne, a professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. It was fairly representative of what we’ve been hearing from New Atheism.     Let me begin by (gladly) stating the obvious: there are untold numbers ofContinue reading “You Can Be Good Without God (1)”

Yearbooks and Anchors

Thanks to sites like You Tube, you can watch your favorite musical groups perform their best songs. It’s a neat way to travel back in time and relive the music you grew up to. I was doing this not too long ago. The group I was listening to had been popular many, many years ago and I was goingContinue reading “Yearbooks and Anchors”

Wineskins, Patches and New Life

Readers of Scripture encounter two undeniable truths as they pore over the gospel accounts of Jesus:  He came to bring a new way of living, Most people weren’t interested (after all, He was crucified). Probably a third truth tracks subconsciously through our minds as we read about Him: I wouldn’t have treated Jesus that way.Continue reading “Wineskins, Patches and New Life”