"They need to figure out a way to show how the gospel tells a better story than our culture does."

…..just go through the Gospels? It struck me a few years back that a lot of churches really like Paul’s writing better than the Gospels, in part because one can see Paul’s lists as checklists—not the sense in which Paul meant them, in my view, but it’s at least sort of plausible. I got this, this, this, this….OK, I must be fine!

Jesus, however, does not let us try to do that; we can sort of pick and choose what we want to do with this or that facet of His ministry, but if we take it in context, He does not allow that. He delights in paradoxes (“blessed are the…”), confronts our inner sins, all kinds of things.

My response was to try and take a group of youngsters through the Gospel of Matthew. Some of them seem to have gotten it, some not. But it was a lot of fun. The Word comes alive when you let it.