As we approach Easter weekend, I hereby un-abashedly and shamelessly promote my brother's new article just posted on Christianity Today's website (and forthcoming in April's print edition) "A Resurrection that Matters."
If you're looking to read an academic who's got a pastoral heart for theological issues, you can do no better than to regularly read Daniel's blog: A Storied Theology.
I'll post the first couple of paragraphs below--both as a 'hook' and because I made some minor recommendations that helped make it sing, if I do say so myself (which I just did):
In the spring of my senior year in college, I was deeply immersed in the rhythms of Christian life. I was a leader in InterVarsity, participated regularly in a Bible study with other seminary-bound friends, set my Sundays aside for worship and rest, and read more than my fair share of extracurricular Christian books. As Easter approached, I began rehearsing the importance of Jesus' resurrection. I knew that for Paul and the other New Testament writers, there could be no Christianity without it. Yet one day as I was walking back to my dorm, it dawned on me that the gospel as I understood it had no need for Jesus to be raised from the dead.
The story of salvation as I had learned it was, in its entirety, about the Cross. I would teach other students about the Romans Road to salvation and the Romans 6:23 bridge diagram. What each of these captured beautifully was that we had a sin problem that God overcame with the cross of Christ. But each presentation also omitted the Resurrection entirely. And why not? Once our debt has been paid, what else could we possibly need? What is so important about Easter?
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