Evangelism
Why does the word evangelism make so many mainline Christians anxious? Raymond Hylton turns to the Great Commission in Galilee, arguing that witness rests on Christ’s authority, not on our management of outcomes.
Tag
Gospels
34 articles from 31 issues, 1995 to 2026
Learning to Say No For the Sake of God’s Yes
From Mark 2, Burnett walks through Christ's habit of dining with sinners and tax collectors. What does the divine yes to the wrong people require us to refuse? Especially now, in a moment when the church most wants to say yes to everything.
A Firm Foundation
A sermon on Matthew 16, where Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ. Small preaches against the language of dying churches, hearing in Christ's promise to Peter the foundation that no rate of decline can shake: the gates of hell will not prevail against the church Christ is building.
The Yoke That Bears Us Up
Why come to Jesus rather than to the certified teachers of the law? Bartow preaches Matthew 11's invitation to take Christ's yoke as the answer to a question Israel had been asking for generations: where, exactly, do we go to find rest for our souls?
From Christ to Christianity
If we could time-travel to first-century Galilee and look for Jesus, what would we find? Edwards uses the thought experiment to trace the leap from a small itinerant Jewish movement to the church Ignatius wrote to seventy years later, and what survived intact in the transition.
Jesus Christ is the Way – Part 2
Edwards continues his treatment of John 14:6 by looking at Jesus' own preferred self-designation: Son of Man. Why this odd title from Daniel 7, and what does it tell us about the way Jesus understood himself as 'the way' the Father had given his people?
Jesus Christ is the Life – Part 1
Burgess opens with a memory of his grandfather, a lifelong Presbyterian missionary in Guatemala, scooping him up off a Denver bus when he was four. The keynote builds from that scene toward the question every Christian eventually meets: where is real life actually found?
Jesus Christ is the Way – Part 1
John 14:6 is the most famous line in the Fourth Gospel and the only place there Jesus calls himself 'the way.' Edwards argues that 'way, truth, and life' aren't three separate virtues but characteristics of a single person, and that John 14 isn't about future glory but present access.
The Call to Love the Small
The Christmas story turns on small things: an old couple visited by an angel, a young woman of little standing, a manger. Gatewood follows that pattern as a calling for the church: to love the small, since this is precisely how the Mighty One came to be among us.
The Protracted Struggle as a Spiritual Discipline
What if the PCUSA’s long conflict is not a misfortune but the will of God? James Edwards turns to Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, a border region where belief was tested, and calls the church to stay at its post through a protracted struggle, as it did against Arius.
The Gift: A Love Story
What is really going on in a pew full of distracted, ordinary people on a Sunday morning? Gerrit Dawson preaches John 17 and says the church is a love gift passed between the Father and the Son, bound together by the Spirit.
The Gift: The Enemy Of The Church
Why does the world resist the church, and what does Jesus pray for us in the middle of that conflict? Gerrit Dawson, preaching John 17:8-19, argues that the deeper danger is a church that gives up its boundaries to avoid friction.