K. Rex Butts's Blog

I started watching the series Yellowstone over the holidays. The series ran for five seasons, beginning in 2018 and ending in 2024. So I’m just a wee bit late in watching all about the Dutton family, or more like the dysfunctional Dutton family.

I don’t want to give away spoilers, but if you’re familiar with the series, then you know how dysfunctional the Dutton family is. Although fictional, as I watch each episode, here is a family where distrust and resentment flow through the ebb and flow of their daily lives. Conspiring behind each other's backs is par for the course if it will give one family member an advantage over another. Here is a family that has their own little kingdom, a large cattle ranch set in the state of Montana, with the money and reputation to leverage power for their own corrupt gain.

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Now, there is more to the show and the family dynamics than I am sharing here. But I make these observations because it reminds me of how humans are so prone to chasing after kingdoms that cannot last. We chase after kingdoms that are more of an illusion because they never deliver the peace and security they pretend to offer. They’re little kingdoms whose foundations are so feeble and frail that we must constantly strive to keep them, exerting the Nietzschian will to power—becoming monsters if necessary.

Jesus Christ offers us a different kingdom, one whose foundation doesn’t depend on our own strength but upon the redemptive work of God. The Kingdom of God is what Jesus proclaimed as the good news he was inaugurating in the world.

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”1

(Matt 4:17; Mk 1:14-15). This means the Kingdom of God is received by us rather than achieved by us. That’s good news because it means we become participants in a kingdom that depends on the redemptive power of God rather than our feeble and ultimately unreliable power. Participating in God’s kingdom requires only repentance and belief in the good news, ultimately trusting that, through the crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom is eternal. Such participation is what we are doing as we follow Jesus Christ,2 which becomes our witness or testimony to God’s kingdom.

Either we run the race marked out for us by God, fixing our eyes upon Jesus, or we’ll run another race, marked out by a kingdom of this world, fixing our eyes on things like partisan politics.

I'm sharing this with you because I have a significant concern at the start of 2026. For over twenty-five years, I have served as a minister of the gospel and have done so among the Churches of Christ. I am ever thankful to serve in ministry, but over time, ministry has become more difficult. Churches are declining and aging. Congregational ministry is more challenging because the cultural contexts of established congregations have changed, and the idea of planting new churches remains beyond the imagination of many congregations.

Over the years, as Christians have encountered the difficulties of ministry and congregational decline, the blame was often attributed to the rise of the isms: postmodernism, relativism, and secularism. Now I recognize that the emergence of any new cultural shift presents new challenges that can make ministry more difficult. However, rather than making these isms into scapegoats for the difficulties of ministry, we have to spend more time looking in the mirror.

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To whatever extent social media can tell us about the decline of Christianity in the United States, much of the problem is one that Christians must own. Far too many professing Christians appear more interested in seeking after the little kingdoms of this world. Just observe the responses to the latest breaking news regarding politics and society. This past weekend, it was the news of the U.S. military strike in Venezuela, leading to the capture of the Venezuelan President Maduro. Like clockwork, even before all the facts and details were known, Christians immediately began to either condemn or defend the U.S., which seemed more like either a condemnation or an affirmation of President Trump. Why? It’s as though partisan politics has become the master, enlisting believers into the service of ideological kingdoms of this world.3

We, who profess to be Christians, must reconsider what race God has called us to run. Consider this text from Hebrews 12:1-2:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

In this text, our life as Christians is described as a race, and we are urged to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ as we run it. Here’s the challenge: We can only run one race at a time! Either we run the race marked out for us by God, fixing our eyes upon Jesus, or we’ll run another race, marked out by a kingdom of this world, fixing our eyes on things like partisan politics.

If we want to see Christianity thrive on mission with God in the United States, seeing the nation pursue the way, truth, and life of Jesus Christ, then we must live as a witness of God’s kingdom. That means running the race that Jesus Christ ran, keeping our eyes fixed upon our Lord.

Whatever the United States once was, it is a pluralistic nation of many religious, political ideologies, and social values. With all due respect to the nation's cultural diversity, if we’re followers of Jesus, we want to see people in the United States become followers of Jesus. The only way that happens is for us to live as witnesses of God’s kingdom, and that only happens by continuing to run the race God has marked out for us to run.

As 2026 unfolds, perhaps this is a time to renew our commitment as Christians and refix our eyes upon Jesus Christ—the pioneer and perfecter of our faith!

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Mark 1:14-15; cf. Matt 4:17. All scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Mark 1:17; Matt 4:19.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I have been just as guilty in times past. There have been times when I have rushed to take up a side with little discernment. There have also been times when I sounded more like an echo chamber of partisan ideology than a follower of Jesus. I regret that. I also want to be clear that Christians should never speak about events and happenings. In a society where human trafficking, racism, and violence are on the rise, Christians should speak, but there needs to be discernment. Any response from Christians ought to reflect the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God rather than sound like an echo chamber of partisan politics. The question Christians must discern is how to respond to events in a manner that reflects the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God?

Last Sunday was the Second Sunday of Advent, the day when our attention is drawn to the peace that God makes possible in the coming of Jesus Christ. One of the readings is a passage from Isaiah 11:1-10.

The prophetic vision of Isaiah looks to the future, the coming of a new Davidic king who will faithfully rule with righteousness and equity. But then we have this strange imagery that signifies the peaceable kingdom the new king will establish. Isaiah 11:6-9 says,

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.1

The imagery of this text is well captured in a painting by Edward Hicks from 1834.

Can you imagine a wolf living with a lamb or a calf and a lion feeding together, being led by a child?

I can’t. In fact, the only way I imagine a wolf and a lamb or a lion and a calf coexisting in the same pasture together is because the bellies of the wolf and lion are already filled with another lamb and calf. It’s okay because I don’t think the point of the text is a literalism that says predatory animals will one day share space with animals of prey, where the latter don’t become food for the former.

The point of the text is Isaiah's vision of peace out there on the horizon. Such peace is predicated on the coming of the new king. As I mentioned earlier, the coming of this king will be another David.2 That is to say that the king’s reign will be good, as opposed to the evil that characterized most of the reigns of Israel’s other kings. So it will be a kingdom characterized by God’s peace.

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Such peace, shalōm in the Hebrew Bible, is more than just the absence of violence and conflict. Yes, peace includes the absence of violence and conflict, but peace is so much more. To have peace is to have our complete life reordered and restored so that we can live in reconciled relationships with God and each other, which is only possible through the coming of Jesus Christ, who has made such peace possible through his death on the cross.

The coming of Christ, which is what Advent draws our attention to, comes with a call to repentance. The point of the prophetic vision is not to say that there will be a literal day when wolves and lions no longer see the lambs and calves as food. The vision is about God establishing a kingdom in this world where the “earth will surely be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, just as the water covers the sea.”3 It’s a vision in which our hearts are changed because we come to know the way of the Lord.4

As the church, we are called to be the people whose testimony says that a life of peace is possible when men and women surrender their lives to King Jesus.

But what is Advent and the vision of a peacable kingdom if we don’t believe it and embody it?

If you find that to be a provocative question, then good, because it should be. There are too many examples of people who have claimed to be Christians but have engaged in some of the worst human atrocities in history. The violence and conflicts that disrupt peace are never the problem; they’re just a symptom of a problem: hearts that have yet to believe the gospel and be formed in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” He’s right.

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Advent is about the coming of Jesus Christ, who came to inaugurate God’s kingdom—a peaceable kingdom. Jesus makes that possible through his crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation. But we dare not miss that we are called to embody the peaceable kingdom of God as a testimony to the world. We do that by learning from Jesus to practice the very virtues that make for peace, putting away the ways of envy, greed, and self-serving behavior that cultivate a climate of fear where violence seems like the only solution. In place of such envy, greed, hatred, and self-serving behavior, we learn how to love one another, becoming humble servants who seek each other’s best interests even when we might disagree with each other.

The other day, I was sitting in a local coffee shop when the song Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by the late John Lennon came on the radio. It’s a Christmas song we hear every year during the holiday season. Like a good poet and even a good prophet, Lennon draws attention to the sad reality of a world where people can say “Merry Christ-Mas,” celebrating the coming of Jesus Christ, in a world that’s still marred not just by war but the sort of conflicts and strife that divide families and communities. But it doesn’t have to be like this. As the church, we are called to be the people whose testimony says that a life of peace is possible when men and women surrender their lives to King Jesus.

Such testimony is possible because we learn from Jesus, becoming filled with the knowledge of the Lord, so that we may bear witness to the peaceable kingdom of God. In other words, we live to show the world what the world is becoming because of the coming of Jesus Christ, who is coming again to complete the reordering and restoring of God’s new creation—the peaceable kingdom.

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Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 121.

Isaiah 11:9, CEB.

John N. Oswalt, “God’s Determination to Redeem His People (Isaiah 9:1-7; 11:1-11; 26:1-9; 35:1-10,” Review and Expositor 88, 159-160, “The point being that those who are the recipients of this messianic hope “do not need changed teeth or digestive systems to participate in the kingdom where there is neither hurt nor destruction, but we do need changed hearts where the experiential knowledge of God reigns supreme (v. 9; cf. Hos. 4.1-3).” See also John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986) 283, where he discusses the literalist and spiritualistic interpretation, noting the problems associated with such approaches.

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent, the day when our faith is drawn back to the promise of hope God has made. The Old Testament reading comes from Isaiah 2:1-5, where the prophet Isaiah proclaims a vision for the days when the nations will flock to the mountain of the Lord

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.1

Indeed, this vision is one of hope. Not hope as in wishful thinking or some desired outcome, like we often use the word hope in our everyday language. The hope Isaiah speaks of is a promise. Such hope means waiting with confidence in a promise, knowing what God will do because of what God has already done. This understanding of hope is why the late Jürgen Moltmann, in his seminal book Theology of Hope, spoke of hope as the future being present to us.2 It’s a hope for the future that’s present to us now because it’s Messianic Hope, a promise that God fulfills in the coming of his Son, Jesus Christ.

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The promise that God fulfills in the coming of Jesus Christ is the reason why the First Sunday of Advent draws our attention back to this Messianic Hope. The prophet Isaiah sees a time when life will be restored and reordered, where righteousness and justice are the norm.3 The old will be made new. Dare we hope that a new creation will emerge from the old creation?

Yes! But don’t miss the scope of this hope. The promise of Messianic Hope that God fulfills in the coming of Jesus Christ has never been about Jewish nationalism. Because the promise of hope cannot be confined to Jewish nationalism, we must resist the lure of turning the promise into a vision of Christian nationalism.4 In other words, the Messianic Hope that Advent calls us into is not about making any nation, including the United States, adopt Christianity as a matter of law and/or a cultural framework for the values that form civic life. Nations and people don’t learn the ways of the Lord so that they may walk in his paths by having those ways forced upon them. Co-opting Christianity to a nationalistic agenda misses the vision of hope proclaimed by Isaiah.

Instead of the coercive power that undergirds Christian nationalism, we embody the hope we have, pursued by faith with love.

The vision of Isaiah comes with an invitation for God’s people to “walk in the light of the Lord.” In other words, because we believe in the promise of Messianic Hope, we are called to embody that hope. But let’s not mistake what such embodiment means. It cannot be the attempt to make nations into Christian nations,5 because it’s not how Jesus Christ embodied the promise of Messianic Hope. Had Jesus sought to bring about God’s kingdom-reign through a means of nationalistic agendas, he could have easily done so. It’s not as if there was a lack of Jewish nationalists in the Second-Temple era of Judaism that Jesus lived among. Jesus embodied the promise of Messianic Hope by being crucified on a Roman cross and told his disciples that if they wanted to continue following him, they must embrace the cross too (cf. Mark 8:34).

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So as we journey through Advent, resist the lure of Christian nationalism. The promise of hope God makes in the coming of Jesus Christ is for all nations. What God wants from us is to be the people who will embody the hope we have in Jesus Christ. Instead of the coercive power that undergirds Christian nationalism, we embody the hope we have, pursued by faith with love. That is, we learn to love people by serving them, trusting that God is at work in us through his Spirit, opening space for us to share our reason for hope—the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Perhaps then, people will see our witness and turn to God for the new life made possible by the coming of Jesus Christ.

Our response in this season of Advent is to remember the promise of hope God has made in the One who was, is, and is to come as an invitation for us as a church. Advent is a call for us to live out of the promise of hope we have in Jesus Christ, so that the rest of the nations and people will know why Advent matters.

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Isaiah 2:1-5; all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James W. Leitch (New York: SCM Press, 1967; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 161, who grounds this understanding of hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Moltmann says, “Christ is risen and beyond the reach of death, yet his followers are not yet beyond the reach of death, but it is only through their hope that they here attain to participation in the life of the resurrection. Thus resurrection is present to them in hope and as promise. This is an eschatological presentness of the future, not a cultic presence of the eternal.”

J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 54.

Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, updated ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, 2022, define Christian nationalism as “a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with civic life.”

Contra to Andrew Torba and Andrew Isler, Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide to Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations, Gab AI, 2022, xxi, who “seek to reestablish states that recognize Jesus Christ as King, the general Christian faith as the foundation of state government, and state laws that reflect (in every way possible and reasonable) Christian morality and charity.”

My family and I used to live in Columbia, Maryland, about 20 miles north of Washington, D.C., where all the Smithsonian Museums are located.1 One of the perks of visiting a Smithsonian Museum is that they don’t charge admission fees, which means my wife and I can do something with our children without breaking the bank.

I never thought I would enjoy visiting an art museum, since I thought it would be boring. However, my wife wanted to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of Art. So we took the children, which meant we would only be there for a couple of hours because they would get bored. Once we started touring the museum, it became apparent that we should have gotten someone to watch our children.

My assumption that art museums were boring was way off. As we walked through the Smithsonian Museum of Art, I was mesmerized. Every display was so captivating. It became apparent that I could spend all day just walking around that art museum, taking it all in.

I mention this experience because I’ve also given some thought to the church as God’s artwork and what that means for the mission of God.

There’s a passage in Ephesians that is significant to this line of thought. In the second chapter, we’re told that we were dead in our sins and transgressions, but that we were made alive in Christ by God. Now that matters because it’s God, not us, who is doing the redemptive work of salvation. We were dead, and couldn’t do anything but God did. So Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”2

There it is. By God’s grace, we have been saved. It’s not by our works, but by the redemptive work of God, which makes us alive in Christ to do good works. But there’s a particular word in v. 10 that I find very fascinating.

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The New International Version uses the word handiwork. “For we are God’s handiwork…” Other English translations might use the word workmanship or masterpiece. In the original language, the word is poiēma, which is where our English words “poem” and “poetry” come from.3 Of course, poetry is a form of art. So v. 10 in the New Jerusalem Bible reads, “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.”

I’m not sure if you have given much thought to the church as God’s artwork. But I believe we need an ecclesiology that views the church, both universally and locally, as God’s artwork. The congregations you serve with and the congregation I serve with are all displays of God’s artwork.4

Our task as the church is good works, not to earn salvation, but because we have already received salvation. A life of good works is our way of participating in the mission of God.

Now I’ve served as a minister of the gospel for long enough that I’ve seen trends come and go. I recall reading books about church growth, some of which were good. I even took a seminary class on the subject. There was a time when every church I spoke with about ministry opportunities asked whether I had read Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Church. Then came the Spiritual Formation phase, followed by the Emerging Church phase, and then the Missional Church phase.

I’m not sure what phase we’re in now, but I know many congregations that are experiencing decline. They realize that door-knocking campaigns and gospel meetings don’t work as effectively as they once did, but they’re unsure what to do. Well, I’m not here to offer any advice that promises church renewal if your church will do this, this, and that. Frankly, I’m weary of such notions. However, I do want to say that perhaps we’re overthinking what it means to participate in God’s mission.

What are the good works we’re supposed to be doing? It’s the life we live in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So when people from the church visit someone in a hospital or assisted living facility, it’s good work. When the church prays for a young couple whose first pregnancy has complications, it’s a good work. When the church does a giveaway for people in the neighborhood, it’s a good work. When some people from the church invite a guest to lunch at the local diner, it’s a good work. When the church embraces people whose nationality, language, and documented status differ from its own, it’s a good work.

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Earlier this year, I asked my church to invite people to our Easter Sunday worship gathering. That meant I had to ask someone because far be it from me to ask a church to do something I’m not willing to do. However, that meant talking to a stranger, which, as an introvert, is always a chore. So, I knocked on my neighbor’s door and invited her to our Easter worship service, and she came.

Most of the church I serve knows the story of my wife and me losing our first child. But because it’s Easter Sunday and I’m preaching on the resurrection of Jesus, I say something like “The resurrection of Jesus says that my son’s not dead forever.” As I say that, I look at my neighbor, and she’s in tears.

After the sermon, I approached my neighbor, and she asked if she could share something with me. “Sure,” I said.

My neighbor looked at me and said, “Two years ago, my daughter took her own life, and this is the first time I’ve been back to church. My husband won’t come and doesn’t want to talk about religion with anyone because he’s so angry with God.”

Of course, I told my neighbor that I was sorry about the loss of her daughter. And then I said, “I hope being here today helps you know that there’s hope.”

This past July 6th, my neighbor, Barb, was baptized into Christ. I share that with you just as a reminder that we never know how God is working, but God is always working for the redemptive good. So let’s open our eyes to see the opportunities God is opening for us to do such good works. For as we do, God is working redemptively among us, putting us on display as portraits of the gospel.

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This is the manuscript for a “talk” I gave at the Resoration Collective gathering in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday, November 11, 2025.

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

D. Edmond Hiebert, “God’s Creative Masterpiece,” Direction 23 (Spring 1994): 117.

K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022), 60, the church as God’s artwork is an embodiment of the gospel understood through a Christ-centered and Kingdom-oriented reading of the Bible. “As we follow Jesus, embodying the gospel in a manner that is centered in Christ and oriented towards the kingdom, God is painting a picture for the world of what the future will be when Christ comes again. Of course, the painting isn’t complete, but as we engage in doing the good works that God has prepared for us, we become a living portrait of what the gospel—then good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God—really looks like.”

There are twenty-eight chapters in the New Testament writing of Acts, which picks up where Luke left off, with the story about God’s redemptive mission fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Acts continues this story of God’s mission to the ends of the world, extending from the Jews to the Gentiles. What began in Luke with Jesus is now carried forward by the followers of Jesus. Those who accepted the invitation to follow Jesus into the in-breaking realm of God’s kingdom are now extending the same invitation to Jews and Gentiles

Last December, I began preaching through the Gospel of Luke, followed by Acts. Now I have finished the series on Acts. But Acts is far from done if we’re following Jesus because doing so means we’re all actors and actresses in the ongoing mission of God. We continue extending the invitation of the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God—to our neighbors.

The writing of Acts begins by imagining us as witnesses of Jesus Christ. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8).1 The final chapter of Acts is also about witnessing. “He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus” (28:23). Between the first chapter and the last chapter, what we read is the story of the Jesus movement, a community of believers, living as a witness to the gospel.

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I don’t believe it’s a mere coincidence that Acts ends with Luke telling us how Paul “proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ…” (28:21). Everything stands or falls on this proclamation. It is what matters.

The Bible is filled with many moral teachings. Without any doubt, following the teachings of the Bible will result in a virtuous life. We will be better husbands and wives, better parents, better brothers and sisters, better neighbors, and even better employees in whatever job we do. But none of that matters without the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Without this gospel, we are all still hopeless. Not only are we still bound to the plagues of our sin, but death still holds us captive to a fight we cannot win. But with the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God, God fulfills the promise of hope.

Although Paul spoke of this hope as “the hope of Israel” (28:20), it’s a hope for us all. But it also means we must continue living as participants in the mission of God, bearing witness to the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. That’s why there is no end to Acts, even though the writing we know as Acts ends with the twenty-eighth chapter.

“I’m not worried about the future of Christianity in America if we, who follow Jesus, continue living as gospel witnesses. As long as we follow Jesus, we’ll always be the church Jesus wants us to be.”

In his theological commentary on Acts, Willie Jennings describes Paul’s witness to his fellow Jewish people as “trying to turn the reading practices of his own people in a new direction in, toward and through the life of Jesus.”2 Like many of us, the Jewish people had scripture too. Still, they needed to see how scripture testifies to Jesus as the Messiah who fulfilled the promise of hope that God made regarding the restoration of the kingdom. I’m convinced that there are Christians who need to have their Bible reading practices turned away from legalism, nationalism, and prosperity, and turned towards Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.

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In Gospel Portraits, I discuss the need for reading the Bible as a “Christ-centered and Kingdom-oriented narrative.”3 This is a participatory reading of scripture whereby we (re)imagine ourselves as actors and actresses in the story, discerning how we play our part as witnesses.4 The reason why such a reading of scripture matters is because, to circle back to Jennings' point, not only do we need our reading practices turned towards Jesus, but so does the rest of the world.

Only when our neighbors learn to navigate life through the gospel lens of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God will they begin to discover the life God is redeeming them to live. But we’re not living in any of the twenty-eight chapters of Acts anymore; we’re living in a subsequent chapter. Our chapter, set in an American context, is one where people have already heard something about Jesus and the kingdom of God. However, the marriage of legalism, nationalism, and prosperity to Christianity has muddled the testimony. It’s for this reason that we must pay as much attention to the way we live as to the content we preach, because if our life, what we live for, isn’t congruent with the content of our preaching, then we undermine our witness.

Although the writing of Acts ends with twenty-eight chapters, the acts of participating in the mission of God do not. There are subsequent chapters. Our chapter, perhaps titled Christianity in America, must continue bearing witness to the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. This is what matters. I’m not worried about the future of Christianity in America if we, who follow Jesus, continue living as gospel witnesses. As long as we follow Jesus, we’ll always be the church Jesus wants us to be. The forms by which we worship, the space where we gather together, and whether we serve fried chicken or pulled pork at a fellowship meal do not matter. What matters is that we bear a living witness to the kingdom of God as the promise of hope God has fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

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Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017, 244.

K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022, 110. On the same page, I go on to write, “As we read the Bible, whether from the Old or New Testament, we are invited to read in a manner that instructs us on how we follow Jesus and embody the kingdom of God he proclaimed.”

Ibid, 113. See also N.T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011, 121-127; The New Testament and the People of God, Christi Origins and the Question of God, vol 1., Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, 139-143.

This past Sunday, a baptism took place during the Southside Church worship gathering. After confessing faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, Tim was immersed in water as a believer. It’s always a wonderful occasion to see someone surrender their life to Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism.

Baptism is a sacramental act, a means by which God’s grace is received. It’s participation in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul writes:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.1

To be clear, baptism is not a human work. The believer is simply submitting to the redemptive word of God, who is raising the believer unto new life in Jesus Christ. This is why baptism is an essential step in living as followers of Jesus Christ.

Because baptism is an act of surrender where, by faith in Jesus Christ, we die to our old life and are raised unto new life in Christ, baptism has everything to do with discipleship. We’re baptized not just for the forgiveness of sins, but in the name of Jesus, with the promise of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 2:38). Being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ means we acknowledge and submit to the authority of our Lord. Baptism is a commitment we are making, a declaration that says our allegiance is now with Jesus Christ.

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In Acts 19, there are twelve disciples whom Luke describes as believers, people who are Christians. They’re seeking to follow Jesus Christ just like anyone who believes should. The problem is that they’ve only received the baptism of John the Baptist and have never heard about the baptism of Jesus Christ. Because of this, they are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and then receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 19:5-6). Receiving the baptism of Jesus was their identification and commitment to the way of Jesus, the new life that is only received by laying down their lives. As Jennings writes, Paul invited these disciples “to baptize their discipleship in Jesus, and thereby join their lives to his in such a way that they will lose their life in the waters only to find it again in the resurrected One.”2

“Our baptism matters because it signifies our commitment to living as followers of Jesus Christ. It’s a commitment that ought to change the way we operate in the world.”

Baptism has never been just about receiving a ticket to heaven. It’s not our “get out of jail” free card. Baptism is our initiation into a new way of life in which we live in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is our commitment to living as witnesses of Jesus Christ, leaving behind all the ways of the old creation, so that we can live as God’s new creation—Gospel Portraits. Because we’re baptized, we embody the gospel by conforming to the beliefs, values, and habits of Jesus Christ.3 It is the reason why Paul, back in Romans, brought up baptism as the reason why we shouldn’t continue sinning.

Baptism matters. When we were baptized, it mattered. When we witness others receiving baptism, it matters. Our baptism matters because it signifies our commitment to living as followers of Jesus Christ. It’s a commitment that ought to change the way we operate in the world.

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I wasn’t around in the 1960s. So I don’t know what life was like in America during those turbulent years. I know the Vietnam War was unpopular and that there were a lot of protests during those years. The assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy were terrible and only made matters worse. But in the twenty-four years since 9/11, the United States of America has become increasingly polarized, filled with vitriol, and violence.

Sadly, this is the USA. As I write, the nation is sinking deeper and deeper into an evil pit, with people becoming so accustomed to it that they no longer recognize the madness. I’m not saying this to point fingers because everyone, including us, is a sinner. But what the nation needs from us who follow Jesus Christ, whether or not people recognize it, is for us to remember our baptism and live accordingly. Nobody needs us to be liberals or conservatives. What they need is for us to be the body of Christ, to remember our baptism, and be the people Jesus has taught us to be.

Our baptism matters because it signifies our commitment to living as followers of Jesus Christ, which is how people will be saved from all the madness. But as a pastor, I am concerned that too many Christians are forgetting their baptism and the commitment their baptism demands. We live as followers of Jesus Christ so that we serve as a portrait of the gospel, not so that we can make America great or build up the nation. There are plenty of people to do the nation’s business, but only the church can serve as witnesses to the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. And we surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ in baptism, not just to receive the promise of salvation, but so that we will live as witnesses of that salvation.

So remember our baptism because it signifies our commitment to living as followers of Jesus Christ. Let’s go live accordingly!

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Romans 6:3-4; Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017, 184.

K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, Euguene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022, 56.

The American Novelist Marilynne Robinson once said, “Wherever you turn your eyes, the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring anything to it except a little willingness to see.” Therein is the first challenge of living by faith in a secular society. We have to be willing to open our eyes and, I would add, open our ears to see and hear God at work. If we don’t, we’re at risk of becoming people who, though still believing in God and professing to be a Christian, lack an “active practice” of the Christian faith.1

In Acts 17, we read of Paul standing before the Areopagus in Athens—the judicial council. Paul expresses his appreciation, mentioning how “very religious” (v. 22)2 the Athenians are. After all, the Athenians have various objects of worship. They even have an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown God.” Yet, for all of their religiosity, if you will, they don’t even know God.

When my wife and I were in Brazil, we visited the town of Ouro Preto in the State of Minas Gerais. Because Ouro Preto was a gold mining town, the Catholic Church built these beautiful church buildings decorated with gold that have become a big tourist attraction. And believe me, they are spectacular to see. But I always wondered how many people pass through those churches and yet don’t know God.

Temples and altars may look beautiful, but they don’t equate to knowing God. What good is religion without knowing God? We can have a nice building filled with beautiful artwork and still lack faith, or have faith but lose it. I don’t mean renouncing Jesus as Lord. What I’m talking about is losing faith in a functional sense. It’s the kind of life where we can be a church member but still live as though Jesus hasn’t changed a thing outside of what goes on inside a church building on Sunday morning. Another way of putting it is to say that losing faith is nominalism. To have a nominal faith is to say we believe, even though that belief has little to no bearing on the way we live. In other words, nominalism is a loss of faith.

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There is more to knowing God and having faith in Jesus Christ than just nominalism. As Paul speaks to the Athenians about God, he tells them that God is the Creator who has purposely chosen to give the blessing of life. As part of creating life, Paul says that God created people “so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (v. 27). We just have eyes and ears to see and hear, eyes and ears that are open and willing to look and listen.

Although it may seem like God is far off sometimes, he’s not. God isn’t hiding from us. As Thomas Merton once said,

“God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything — in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that He is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. You cannot be without God. It's impossible. It’s simply impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it.”

If our struggle is a matter of seeing and hearing God, how do we live with eyes and ears to see and hear the work of God taking place in life? The answer, I believe, is that we must train our eyes and ears to see and hear God.

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.” - Saint Patrick

I started learning to play the guitar when I was twelve. Now, at 51 years old, I have been playing the guitar for 39 years. I’m no Eddie Van Halen or Stevie Ray Vaughan on the guitar but I can play well enough to hold my own in a jam session. Part of learning to play the guitar involves training the eyes and ears to see how other guitarists are playing and hear what they’re playing. The training of the eyes and ears involved in learning to play the guitar requires practicing what is seen and heard. Such training develops what guitarists describe as muscle memory, which then allows the guitarist to become more natural at playing what the mind has learned.

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There are some parallels when it comes to learning how to play the guitar and learning to live by faith. However, instead of watching other guitarists, we train our eyes and ears by focusing on what God has done in the past so that we’ll begin to anticipate what God is doing in the present for the future of his new creation that he is bringing about in Jesus Christ. Such training involves spiritual disciplines: regular times spent in prayer, reading our Bible, reflecting on our daily lives as followers of Jesus, serving others in need, and spending time in fellowship with each other. These disciplines allow us to see and hear how God has worked among people in scripture, people within our local church community, and even in our own lives. In doing so, we develop a Christ-formed faith (cf. Gal 4:19) that allows us to more naturally live as participants in the mission of God.

Luke ends the story in Acts 17 with the following: “Some people joined him [Paul] and came to believe, including Dionysius, a member of the council on Mars Hill, a woman named Damaris, and several others” (v. 34, CEB). At the end of the day, to participate in the mission of God is to become so formed in Christ by the Spirit that we reflect Christ in a manner that compels others to become believers just like us. As the prayer of Saint Patrick goes…

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.”

The more we see and hear God, as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the more others will see and hear Christ in us—perhaps becoming believers just as some did after hearing Paul.

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Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, 513.

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

If someone you have never met spent a month observing your life—paying attention to the things you say, how you treat others, what you invest your time in doing, the values you embrace—would they see a reflection of Jesus Christ?

This was the question I asked in my Bible class with the Southside Church last Sunday morning, as we discussed reading the Bible and embodying the gospel. Consider the two following passages of scripture:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” - Ephesians 2:8-101

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

As a Christian, you have been saved by grace through faith so that you may live a life of good works. The life of good works is what I mean when I talk about embodying the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. There is plenty of space for discernment about the particulars of what such an embodiment of the gospel requires, but it has to do with our lives reflecting the life of Jesus Christ.

“Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their disbelief in God.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thankfully, God has given you scripture to teach you about embodying the gospel and thus living a life of good works. Scripture is not given so that you can solve all kinds of philosophical and theological puzzles. Likewise, scripture is not given so that you can use it as a weapon to beat those you disagree with in a game of What Does the Bible Teach. There is nothing wrong with reflecting on scripture so that you may know the truth and not be misled by false teachings. But at the end of the day, scripture is given so that you may live as a faithful embodiment of the gospel.

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I go into more detail about what I am saying here in the book I wrote.2 My point is that you need scripture because you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Nobody, myself especially, faithfully embodies the gospel all the time. Everyone, including myself and you, is still learning and will continue to learn how to follow Jesus. Don’t give up. Continue following so that others may encounter the God revealed in Jesus Christ. As the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their disbelief in God.”

Every day, numerous things vie for your attention. Or at least they do for me, so I’ll assume they do for you also. Many of these matters are not inherently evil. However, satan still wants to use such items to distract you. The distractions are meant to keep you from giving your undivided attention to the good works for which you have received scripture, so that you may learn to do those good works. Jesus said, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16, RSV). It takes intentionality to remain focused on following Jesus Christ.

Intentionality. Be intentional with what you do. Be intentional with the things you say. Be intentional with what you post on social media. Be intentional in how you treat the people you encounter. Be intentional in wanting people to see Jesus Christ in you. Even if they don’t know who Jesus Christ is, be intentional anyway. Then, when God opens space for you to share the good news of Jesus Christ, they’ll recognize that good news as your way of life too.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to go it alone because God has given you His Spirit so that you may have the strength to live as a reflection of Jesus Christ.

So I’ll leave you with this question again… If someone you have never met spent a month observing your life—paying attention to the things you say, how you treat others, what you invest your time in doing, the values you embrace—would they see a reflection of Jesus Christ?

Grace and Peace to you! - Rex

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Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022.

As surprising as it may be to some, the name Christian was first coined by non-believers in Antioch during the first century. According to Acts 11:26, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”1 This was a label given to the community of disciples.

Far from a compliment, the label of Christians was a form of ridicule, which may seem strange to us. For those of us who grew up in the United States, Christianity was embedded in much of our culture. What seemed strange, if not offensive, was to hear atheist voices like Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Christopher Hitchens, who were quite vocal about disdain for Christianity. But in the first century, these so-called Christians were a small group of people whose difference was that they aligned themselves with Jesus Christ, a Jewish man crucified on a Roman cross. Therein lies the strangeness of being Christians.

Crucifixion was viewed as shameful and weak (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-25). It was the Roman way of humiliating their enemies,2 especially those whom others believed to be the Christ (Messiah). Crucifixion was a mockery that said, as N.T. Wright so eloquently puts it, “If you want to be high and mighty, then we’ll give you high and mighty when we nail you to the cross.”3

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It seems strange to think that people aligned themselves with someone crucified, but these Christians did. According to Acts, they had a message that they shared with anyone who would listen, “telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.” Of course, we know they did so because they believed that God raised Jesus from the dead. The result was that many more people became believers and joined their ranks as Christians.

Something significant was happening. Although these folks who believed in Jesus were few in comparison to the larger Roman Empire, a movement was taking shape. The Christians in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch. The text tells us, “When he [Barnabas] arrived and saw what the grace of God had done…” (Acts 11:23). This is the big clue as to what it means to be a Christian.

When Barnabas came to Antioch, he was able to see with his eyes. Seeing has to do with the act of physically observing or perceiving with the eye.4 Nobody had to tell Barnabas what was happening because he was able to see it for himself. The life of these Christians was more than just ascribing to particular doctrines, attending a Sunday church service, and leaving an offering before leaving. Their Christian Faith was a way of living as much as it was a belief. It was an allegiance to Jesus as Lord, rather than Caesar, that resulted in a radical life rooted in the grace of God.

The lives of these Christians embodied the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. It was the living of their faith in Jesus Christ that made them appear strange,5 earning these disciples in Antioch the label “Christians.”

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But that was then, and this is now. Here we are, more than halfway through 2025. The challenge for us is that we’re not living in a time where Christianity is new. We’re living in a society where people are aware of Christianity, and a significant portion of those people are seeing the lives of Christians and saying, “If that’s Christianity, then we’ll take a pass.” It’s part of the reason we now live in sort of a post-Christian society. Anyhow, eighteen years ago, a book by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons was released, titled Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity… and Why It Matters. What their research revealed was that Christians are perceived as hypocrites, disingenuous in our motives, homophobic, too sheltered and out of touch with reality, too political, and lastly, judgmental.6

Like it or not, these are the circumstances we live in, and they are not likely to change for the better anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean we throw the towel in, so to speak, and give up. What we can do and must do is recommit ourselves to living as a strange people, strange as in following the way of the crucified Jesus Christ. I mean, strange as in giving our sole allegiance to Jesus Christ in the way that we live to warrant that label, Christians. I mean, strange but in a godly way, so that people might see us as Christians with an envy that draws them to us and makes them curious about the Christian Faith.

The believers we read about in Acts came to be known as Christians not by their own choice but because they were committed to living in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re called to be no less, no more: Living in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and as long as that is how we live, we’ll always be the Christians Jesus wants us to be.

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All scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016), 55, “Those who crucified people did so because it was the sharpest and nastiest way of asserting their own absolute power and guaranteeing their victim’s absolute degradation.”

Ibid, 59. Wright makes this point as he writes, “…the Romans sometimes used crucifixion as a way of mocking a victim with social or political pretensions. ‘You want to be high and lifted up?’ they said in effect. ‘All right, we’ll give you ‘high and lifted up.’’ Crucifixion thus meant not only killing by slow torture, not only shaming, not only issuing a warning, but also parodying the ambitions of the uppity rebels.”

See the entry for ὁράω in Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3d ed., rev. Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 719..

Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 124, writes that the name Christians was meant as “ridicule that registered the strangeness of their song and of their sound. But like a new song that announces a new time in present time, it may often seem and sound strange. Christian in its plural form always equals a strange new future.”

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity… and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007), 29-30. It’s worth noting that perception and reality are not the same. The research shared in this book reveals how Christians, in general, are perceived. This doesn’t mean that these perceptions are always accurate, but almost always there is some truth to perception.

Last week, my family and I visited Searcy, Arkansas. My youngest son had an admissions visit at Harding University, the alma mater of Laura and me. It was nice to run into some familiar faces, visit Midnight Oil Coffee House, and see all the changes to the town and campus since we moved away. Unfortunately, Mi Ranchito, a local Mexican restaurant that Laura and I frequented, has closed down.

One other thing we did was visit the grave of our son, Kenny, who would be twenty-three years old today. Like we’ve done before, Laura and I took a photo with our two other children, Caryn and Jared, standing by the flat headstone.

Of course, the loss of Kenny leaves a lasting sadness. I have never gotten over it, so to speak. Grief doesn’t go away over time; I have just learned to live with the grief. So grief is a journey, filled with lament and also the hope that springs from lament, knowing that the tomb is empty. Our son’s death isn’t forever. Kenny isn’t gone forever. I grieve his passing and ask God why our son couldn’t live, but I also know that he rests in Christ and will rise again when Christ comes again.

Regarding the journey of grief, I’m at a point where the bitterness has subsided, and I can reflect on the joys of Kenny’s life. That’s good because I promised Kenny that I would always remember him, and part of that is to remember not just the loss but also the good.

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I remember the beauty of his mother as she gave birth to our first child. I remember the overwhelming sense of God’s presence as I held Kenny for the first time. I remember the joy of introducing Kenny to his grandparents as I carried him from the delivery room to the nursery. I remember the blessing of changing his diaper and caring for him as a parent should. I remember holding him as he slept, his firm grip grasping my finger. I remember…

And so I look at this picture of Caryn and Jared standing beside Kenny's grave with a sense of God’s presence. Just as I sensed when Kenny was born, I know that God is here in this place and has extended his blessing. I look around and am reminded that Kenny is still part of a family. That Kenny has a younger sister and brother, and that they have an older brother. And today, on Kenny’s birthday, we will celebrate life as a family.

I never thought I would see any blessing standing beside Kenny’s grave, but that’s what I saw this past week. God was present there.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted...” - Psalm 34:18 (NIV)

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