Summary of the Text As a child, I was attracted to the dark recesses of my neighborhood. I was drawn to the dim lit woods that were away from the din of the suburbia in which I was raised. I even rem...
Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text As a child, I was attracted to the dark recesses of my neighborhood. I was drawn to the dim lit woods that were away from the din of the suburbia in which I...
Matthew 10:40-42, John 20:21, Acts 1:18, 2 Peter 2:13, Luke 17:10, John 3:18, Matthew 28:19, Ephesians 5:20, James 5:14, Colossians 3:17, Acts 3:6, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Acts 20:35
The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, the distributive property...
In this short excerpt, Father Roderick Strange speaks to those who want to write off the church. It is written primarily to a Roman Catholic audience, but it relates quite well to Protestants as well:...
Philippians 2:5, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 2:21, Colossians 3:16, 1 John 2:6, John 13:15
Imagine you were cast to play the role of legendary baseball player Babe Ruth in a biography of his life. You could simply follow the script, reading out what is written. How much better, though, to s...
Matthew 10:40-42, John 20:21, Acts 1:18, 2 Peter 2:13, Luke 17:10, John 3:18, Matthew 28:19, Ephesians 5:20, James 5:14, Colossians 3:17, Acts 3:6, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Acts 20:35
preaching commentary The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, th...
Context— Looking Ahead The next 2 weeks (Week 5 – 4:17-5:2; and Week 6 – 5:3-21) move into more of the practical application of what we’ve seen thus far in Ephesians. The week after that (Week 7 – ...
Context— Looking Ahead The next 2 weeks (Week 5 – 4:17-5:2; and Week 6 – 5:3-21) move into more of the practical application of what we’ve seen thus far in Ephesians. The week after that (Week 7 – ...
Context We continue through the body of the letter as we move into a different image for practical, Christian living. Next week will become much more specific in Paul’s exhortations for living in re...
Context We continue through the body of the letter as we move into a different image for practical, Christian living. Next week will become much more specific in Paul’s exhortations for living in re...
Philippians 2:6-7, Galatians 2:20, John 10:30, Ephesians 5:21, Colossians 1:19-20, John 15:13, Matthew 20:28
There are two wonderful Greek words that the early church theologians used to describe the Trinity: kenōsis and perichōrēsis. Kenosis is the act of self-giving for the good of another. It is found in ...
John 1:1-14, Ephesians 5:5-20, Isaiah 60:1-5, Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 4:12-17, John 8:12-20, Colossians 4:6
In these two little Illustrations, C.S. Lewis demonstrates how a life of discipleship, of following Jesus, does not lead to uniformity and a drab existence, but rather the opposite. Jesus takes our li...
Ephesians 4:25-5, 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33, Psalm 130:, John 6:35, 41-51, Ephesians 5:1-2, Acts 9:4
Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 and putting on the “new ...
Ephesians 5:1-2, Philippians 2:12-13, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 11:1, 1 Peter 2:21-23, John 13:15
My father was an artist. He had a black leather sketchbook filled with cartoons and doodles. As a boy I was enthralled by his drawings and wondered how I could learn to draw like him. I began by traci...
I wasn’t raised in a Christian family. I only entered the “Christian bubble” of a Southern Baptist youth group in junior high, where I pledged myself to abstinence before marriage at a True Love Waits...
God put the body together in such a way that those who experience honor in this life and those who do not are to astound the world by their unity and their concern for one another.
Jesus, light of the world, shine your light and your truth upon us. Thank you for the amazing gift you have given to us: to be called children of God! We worship you today, giving thanks for your gene...
Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...
Preaching Commentary Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 a...
Ephesians 5:16, John 9:4, Isaiah 30:15, Habakkuk 2:20, Zechariah 2:13
In the last class I taught at Regent, an obviously irritated young woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Peterson, three times during your lecture you did not say anything for twenty seconds. I know beca...
Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...
Isaiah 9:2, John 1:1-5, John 8:12, Psalm 27:1, Luke 2:9, Ephesians 5:8, Psalm 23:4, Luke 2:1-2
In the great scheme of things, light is actually quite rare. Geo-physicists tell us that 71 percent of the earth’s surface lies under the ocean, which means that most of our planet abides in eternal d...
For all the gifts and abilities that God has given us, we are still his creatures who do not possess the divine control over life. But that limit is rejected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The ...
As you leave us today, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the un...
Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...
Ephesians 5:8-14, John 1:12, John 1:45, Hebrews 12:, Colossians 1:13-14
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Reconciled with God for Holiness Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians to exhort them to live lives that are in line with the great...
Isaiah 60:1-6, Genesis 32:30, John 2:1-12, Isaiah 9:2, Matthew 4:16, Ephesians 5:8, Luke 1:78, Titus 2:11, Isaiah 49:6, John 1:5, Isaiah 60:19, Revelation 22:5
Word Study Ἐπιφάνεια: The Greek word from which the English transliterates Epiphany is a combination of a preposition and a verbal idea. Epi -upon and fainō -to shine, illuminate. An epiphany is li...
Almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who has made the light of your truth shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may hav...