This revised edition of The Family Metaphor in Jesus' Teaching examines the family metaphors for God (Father) and for believers («children,» «brothers») that Jesus chose to use. Jesus not only held up a child as an example of receptivity, but he defended actual children, warning against despising «one of these little ones.» Using current discussions of the «equal-regard family» and of the importance of «human fathering,» Stephen Finlan explores how the gospel entails a changed model of...
Many ministers instinctively recoil from «washed in the blood» theology, but they hesitate to discuss the subject. This book is useful in showing how the «purchased by the blood» idea is out of step with Jesus, who taught that God reaches the pure in heart without any sacrificial payment. The sacrificial metaphors used by the Apostle Paul have been taken far too literally and turned into an imagined «mechanics» of salvation in which God is «paid off.» This manipulative idea has been the source...
