Two documents from Chris Brauns’s personal notes for his series on the Sermon on the Mount. One is an uneven summary of the sermons. The other is the glossary of terms I thought I should understand in order to preach…
A Term from Sunday’s Sermon: Self-Referential Absurdity
In Sunday’s sermon, I defined the term “self-referential absurdity.” This is an important concept when dealing with the mind of the late modern age. Have you ever encountered self-referential absurdity? Self-Referential Absurdity – When the application of a claim to…
Why Jesus’s Warning “Judge Not That You Be Not Judged” Is So Popular
Our culture is infatuated with Jesus’s admonition, “Judge not, that you be not judged (Matthew 7:1-2).” But, as I explained in Sunday’s sermon, the reason this is a favorite saying may not be good news. There are, arguably, two reasons, our…
6 Facts About the Giving of American Christians
Yesterday, I posted Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson’s conclusions about why Americans don’t give. Now, here are six facts they discovered in their research about American giving. At least one out of five American Christians – 20% of all…
Augustine and Luther: A Common Excuse for Not Giving
Augustine: It is a great duty of natural affection (it will be said) for a father to lay up for his sons; rather it is a great vanity, one who must soon die is laying up for those who must…
Christian Smith on Why Americans Give So Little Financially
Christian Smith, who coined the term “moralistic therapeutic deism,” is one of the foremost sociologists in the world. In a book he wrote with Michael Emerson and Patricia Snell, Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money,…
“Don’t Store Up Treasures on Earth”: What Jesus Doesn’t and Does Mean
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7 : Christian Counter-Culture)
Jesus’ Ethic Not So Much Ascetic as Athletic
The oft quotable F.D. Bruner interacting with Matthew 6:19-21 in Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 writes (page 321): Jesus does not quash ambition; he elevates it. The Christian is to be ambitious, passionate, acquisitive, enterprising —…
Focus on Fasting
One of the ways God’s people should respond to grave injustice in the world is to fast and pray for the gospel message to go out to all nations. A number of our flock responded to my sermon on Matthew…
Pray the Lord’s Prayer, Don’t Chant It!
In our series at the Red Brick Church on the Sermon on the Mount, one of our central emphases has been to pray rather than chant the Lord’s Prayer. It is of no value to mindlessly recite the Lord’s prayer.…