Philip Friesen

JESUS AND THE VIOLENCE OF REVELATION

Dear FF You asked what I thought about Jesus leading his followers into bloody conquest of God’s enemies in the Book of Revelation. I’ll try to demonstrate a “hermeneutic of the cross” as applied to this question. By that I mean the conscious attempt to relate the teaching of Revelation back to the cross in a meaningful way, working with the assumption that the cross ultimately governs everything...

Philip Friesen

FORGIVENESS IN A MENNONITE VEIN

HEROES OF FAITH IN OUR TIME                  A CLOUD OF WITNESSES REPORT For Emmanuel Mennonite Church, Minneapolis, MN             I was having my worst year of college, almost flunking a course in my major field and feeling somewhat guilty about being of no help at home. My sister, Jewell, at 16 years of age, was helping pay expenses with an after school job, and Dad was in...

Philip Friesen

INTERVENTION IN SYRIA AND MY PERSONAL HANDGUN

We all learn from recent history, especially when that history is our own experience. A recent lesson American foreign policy planners learned was that military power can sometimes be used to prevent atrocities, even genocide. There can be no doubt that the perceived current need to intervene somehow in Syria is powerfully supported by memories of the Rwanda genocide when the west had the means and the...

Philip Friesen

INTERPRETING GENESIS IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: An Essay on Love, Trust, and Human Significance

Jesus revealed that God is love. Love binds the Trinity as one, and love is the motivation for creation itself. Genesis does not say this or even mention love, it only tells us what God did. But Jesus Christ has revealed who God is and what is his nature. We understand the meaning of Genesis in the light of further revelation that is complete in Jesus. Trust is essential for all relationship. Our salvation...

Philip Friesen

RESPONSE TO DOMA

I believe God accepts people in committed gay relationships just as surely as God accepts soldiers blowing up enemy cities in defense of their own nations, but this does not mean either social arrangement is according to God’s will. Marriage did not die in America when same sex marriage arrived. Marriage died 50 years ago in America when the nation quite informally and apart from legislation adopted a...

Philip Friesen

What’s It Like to Be God?

June 14 In my last writing, I described how God wanted to know by experience and relationship what it meant to be human, and therefore, we may ask the question, “Can humans know by experience and relationship what it means to be God. In 1John 3:2 we read, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.   God is God and always will be. Humans are human and will be forever, but in Jesus Christ...

Philip Friesen

Why Ever Would God Want to Be Human?

June 6, 2013   Why would God want to become human? Isn’t the very notion preposterous. The entire Muslim world believes it is, and for Buddhists, well, it is thinkable for humans to become God, but certainly not the other way around. The New Testament presents a God who took on the status of being human. “Jesus, the Son of God…is not incapable of feeling our weaknesses, with us, but...