The original recipients of the Letter of First Peter inhabited a radically different social context from our own. We do not live under Roman imperial rule. Slave labor is not the driving force of our economy. Women are not under patriarchal domination in our culture as they once were. Society has changed, but what is beyond dispute is that Western culture remains antithetical to God's will and hostile to the Jesus way. The imperial Caesar has been replaced by the imperial self. The Pax Romana has been replaced by the American Dream. Western capitalism still trades in the bodies and souls of...

The God Who Comforts is a spiritual reading of Jesus' upper room discipleship sermon. What started out as a Passover meal became an inspiring and spiraling manifesto of comfort and challenge. Jesus propels the conversation forward into our hearts and minds. When Jesus got up off his knees and resumed his place of authority, he framed this strategic discourse in the Truth that cannot be packaged as a consumer product or programmed to fit the secular mind. Four distinct comings shape Jesus' sermon in the upper room: his final coming, the Parousia; his gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete; his...