Freedom By Choice

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.  John 8:36 NASB Free – Consider the strangeness of this statement.  Oh, you might have heard it so often that it doesn’t seem strange to you anymore, but pause just long enough to notice the verb eleutheróō.  It means “to set free.”  The apostle…

Freeing Yourself (2)

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. John 8:36 NASB Free – eleutheróō.  “To set free.”  The Greek verb is contrasted to being a slave.  To be set free is to be redeemed from slavery.  This is not merely a political act.  To be really free is to experience independent self-determination. …

Freeing Yourself (1)

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. John 8:36 NASB Free – Did you read the statements of Jonathan Sacks from yesterday’s edition?  Oh, if you didn’t, then go back before you read this. Do you remember what he wrote? “Atonement and forgiveness are the supreme expressions of human freedom –…

Bobby McGee

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.  John 8:36  NASB Free – Janis Joplin sang the theme song of an entire generation: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Some days I think she was right. John uses a Greek verb with particularly dense meanings.  Eleutheróō in the Greek world had…

Real Freedom

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36 NASB Free – The world is preoccupied with freedom these days. It is current political coinage. In the West, our conception of freedom has been extended to include a doctrine of entitlements and rights no prior civilization could have imagined. Freedom is…

Defining Terms

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.  John 8:36  NASB Free – Why does the biblical worldview seem so impossible to put into practical application? How can Yeshua say that we should not worry about tomorrow, that we should constantly forgive, that we are not to calculate the requests and demands…

Oswald’s Insight

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36 NASB Free – A favorite verse of those who desire unfettered living, pastors are quick to point out that “free” doesn’t mean “no obligations.” In the Roman world, free would indeed entail the right to do as I please, but that…

Pardon the Expression

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.  John 8:36  NASB Makes you free – Are you free?  The answer depends entirely on your worldview.  The meaning of the term “free” is a function of the culture you belong to.  And the difference between the Greek/Western view of freedom and the…

A Reasonable Conclusion

“If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”  John 8:36  NASB Therefore – Don’t we love this verse!  I hear it all the time.  “Jesus set me free.”  “I’m free because Jesus died for me.”  The great mantra of the Western world is “Freedom!”  Of course, none of us bother…

More Than I Am

“Then if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” John 8:36 Free – Freedom is an important word in a man’s vocabulary. We have talked about it a lot. We recognized that the Greek idea of freedom is centered in the relationship between the individual and the State. For the Greeks, freedom is…