“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 elevate me above the world; rather, it humbles me before the world. As a man, I need to come to grips with the fact that lust is not allowed in the city where all God’s daughters… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“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 God who is good. Our problem is not that we are good and God is evil. The gospel flips this… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“Jesus contrasts who blesses and curses. The sheep are blessed “by my Father.” We might assume, then, that the goats are inversely cursed by the Father; but no such thing is said. Jesus simply says they are cursed. Like the rich man clutching his greed in the rubble of his riches while heaven calls him “son.” Like the wedding crasher… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“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 to give her the Law; it’s to give her himself. We tend to think of the Ten Commandments as legalistic rules and regulations to keep a distant, uptight God happy. But Israel understood them as wedding… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“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 judgment against those forces that stand opposed to this kingdom begins to come into clearer focus. When we reclaim the biblical story of God’s identification with the weak against the oppression of the strong, the subtopic… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“Jesus calls us to holiness and justice. Holiness involves dealing with the spark, the poisoned well, the root in our own hearts. Justice involves dealing with the wildfires, the raging rivers, the wicked trees in our world. Holiness and justice are the tools Jesus has given us to join his fight against the power of hell. These are the inseparable… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“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, waiting for us to join him there. And when his grace rather than our glory becomes the starting point, there’s freedom to enter the world as it is, to not ignore or sugarcoat the pain but… — Joshua Ryan Butler Copy Share
“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
