“One of the problems with the ways we tend to talk about the power of hell is that we shift the blame for the cruelty that is ours in the world away from ourselves and toward the heart of the… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Both good and evil hang from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the problem is that they are on the wrong tree. But there is good news. There is another tree: the tree of life. Where life is… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Jesus’ doctrine of hell levels the playing field. This is one of the things I have come to love about it. It does not… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“One of the problems with the ways we tend to talk about the power of hell is that we shift the blame for the… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Jesus contrasts who blesses and curses. The sheep are blessed “by my Father.” We might assume, then, that the goats are inversely cursed by… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Now, the Law is good, and God gives it to his people, but God’s primary purpose in bringing Israel to the mountain is not… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“When we reclaim the biblical story of God’s purpose to bless, reconcile, and heal the nations through his international, multiethnic kingdom, the subtopic of… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Jesus calls us to holiness and justice. Holiness involves dealing with the spark, the poisoned well, the root in our own hearts. Justice involves… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“We’re invited not to set out and find God, but to stop running and be found.” — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Sacrifice is not something we use to clean ourselves up so God can stand to be with us again. On the contrary, sacrifice is… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“But God beckons from our brokenness, breaks in through the back door, invites us to encounter him in our insecurities, sits in our suffering,… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“The extinction of desire stands in stark contrast to the redemption of desire.” — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“This is our salvation: to be indwelt by God within us (the Spirit), united to God before us (the Son), and embraced within the… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“The cross is not a mechanism we use to get to God, but the way God has come to find and raise us.” — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“A moralist looks at Jesus in the desert and immediately jumps to, We need to pony up, try harder, and be faithful under temptation!… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“Our problem is not that we’re reaching out for God and he’s refusing to be found. It’s the opposite: God’s reaching out for us,… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
“One wonders whether the loss of such ceremony has contributed to the Western world’s exaltation of the autonomous individual over the world—no longer seeing… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share Image
