I appeal to you, Lord, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob and Israel, you the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Infinitely merciful as you are, it is your will that we should learn to know you....
Pastor: Almighty and everlasting God, as Isaac once carried the wood of the sacrifice on his back up the mountain, only to be delivered, so You willed Your Son Jesus Christ to carry the wood of the ...
Context Signs and Dialogue There’s a reoccurring pattern in Johns’s Gospel in which Jesus performs a sign, which is followed by dialogue and then commentary from Jesus that provides the theological ...
John 10:11-18, John 9:null, Genesis 4:2-4, Numbers 14:33, 1 Samuel 16:11, 2 Samuel 5:2, Isaiah 56:11, Zechariah 10:2, Jeremiah 23:1-2, Jeremiah 50:6, Zechariah 10:2-3, John 10:11-18, Ezekiel 34:11-16, Psalm 23:, Luke 15:1-7, Matthew 18:12-14, John 13:1, John 15:13, John 9:34-35
Preaching Commentary Context Signs and Dialogue There’s a reoccurring pattern in Johns’s Gospel in which Jesus performs a sign, which is followed by dialogue and then commentary from Jesus that pr...
John 1:3, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 2:2-3, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:31
The Jews were not the only religious people in the ancient world. There were others, such as the Akkadians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and they had their own creation stories. When one compares the ...
Hebrews 13:20, Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:14-19, Genesis 3:14, Genesis 8:20-9, Genesis 9:5-6, Genesis 12:1-3, Galatians 3:16, John 8:56-58, 2 Corinthians 3:7-9, Deuteronomy 30:1-10, Deuteronomy 30:1, 2 Samuel 7:4-17, Luke 1:31-33, Acts 1:6, Revelation 19:16, Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, Hebrews 8:8-12, Galatians 3:13-20
Eternal covenant, Heb 13:20—The redemptive covenant before time began, between the Father and the Son. By this covenant we have eternal redemption, an eternal peace from the ‘God of peace’, through th...
Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Isaiah 58:6-12, John 15:1-8, Matthew 28:18-20, Psalm 1:1-3
Pastor: Go now, as God’s children, chosen and dearly loved, to bear fruit for His Kingdom – fruit that will last. May the almighty and merciful Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless...
Acts 10:34-35, Acts 2:1-12, John 4:1-42, Romans 12:10, 1 John 4:20-21
God and Father of all, in your love you made all the nations of the world to be a family, and your Son taught us to love one another. Yet our world is riven apart with prejudice, arrogance, and pride....
1 Peter 2:9, James 5:14-15, 2 Corinthians 5:20, Matthew 9:37-38, Galatians 6:9-10, Romans 12:5, 1 John 3:1
Father–Father of the Lord Jesus and our Father: You’ve blessed us beyond imagination. You redeem us, forgive us and lavish Your gifts on us: Thank You. You choose us, when we wouldn’t choose ourselves...
Luke 22:15-16, John 13:34-35, John 3:14-17, Hebrews 10:19-22
Grace to You and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by hi...
2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 23:, 2 Samuel 7:5-16, John 10:1-18, Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7, Ezekiel 34:11-16
Do you remember seeing the golden sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun ? What has he got in his hands? If you remembered that he was holding a shepherd’s crook, you’re right (he is also holding a...
Genesis 15:5, Isaiah 41:8, Isaiah 2:2-4, Matthew 28:16-20, John 12:32, Acts 2:1-11
The central vision of world history in the Bible is that all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every oth...
Philippians 2:6-8, John 1:10-11, Isaiah 53:3-4, Matthew 11:19, Mark 15:34, Isaiah 53:12, Luke 15:20-24, Revelation 7:13-14
In this excerpt, the French monastic leader Frere Pierre Marie, shares an interpretation of Jesus as the true prodigal son—bringing all of us home with him: He, who is born not from human stock, or ...
Paul’s insight that Gentiles are co-heirs, co-members, and co-participants in the gospel is not a mere sociological adjustment—it is a radical theological revelation.
Unless God is our Father, we are orphans. But God’s own Son has become our Older Brother. He comes through His Spirit, with His Father, to live with us. The Holy Spirit dwells in our lives, making us ...
With what confidence would anyone address God as ‘Father’? Who would break forth into such rashness as to claim for himself the honour of a son of God unless we had been adopted as children of grace i...
Pastor: May God the Father, who has created you for His Kingdom; may God the Son, who has forgiven you all your sins and invited you to “Come and see;” and may God the Holy Spirit, who has worked fa...
Matthew 13:1-23, Isaiah 6:8, 1 Peter 3:15, Galatians 6:9-10, John 13:34-35, Colossians 4:5-6
Father, as we go to our homes and our work this coming week we ask you to send the Holy Spirit into our lives. Open our ears- to hear what you are saying to us in the things that happen to us and i...
John 1:12-13, Luke 15:11-32, Ephesians 1:3-6, John 3:1-2, Galatians 4:4-7, Romans 8:14-17
Leader: For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as children, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witne...
Matthew 7:9-11, Luke 15:11-32, Galatians 4:6-7, 1 John 3:1, Proverbs 3:11-12, 2 Corinthians 6:18, Hebrews 12:7-10
In his excellent book, The Magnificent Story , James Bryan Smith shares a true story from Japanese culture that illustrates just how demanding strict disciplinarian fathers can be. The Japanese...
Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Deuteronomy 1:5, Exodus 18:13-27, Exodus 20:18-19, Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10, John 1:21, John 6:14, Acts 3:22-23, 1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 24:27
Context A Copy of the Law or a Second Law? Like the other books in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the title of the book of Deuteronomy comes from its translation into Greek. The...
Acts 2:1-4 , Psalm 103:12-13, 1 Peter 5:6-7, James 1:5, 1 John 3:1
Pastor: By grace, through Jesus, God calls us His children so that we might become more like Him, setting our hope on His grace, and living as holy people who fear the Lord and love one another. Whe...
Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 23:null, John 21:15-19, Luke 19:1-10, Genesis 45:4-7, Psalm 23:5, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...
John 10:11-18, Matthew 18:12-13, 1 Peter 2:25, Ezekiel 34:11-12, John 10:3-4, Luke 15:4-6, Isaiah 40:11
During the riots in Palestine in the middle thirties a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle sequestrated by the Government. The inhabitants however ...
Acts 2:1-4, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, John 4:1-26, John 14:16-17, Ezekiel 36:26-27, Isaiah 61:1
Creator of all things, Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, Father, Shepherd, Servant, Brother, Priest and King. Whose love poured out mends broken hearts. Whose wounded hands reach out to all. Whose S...
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Hebrews 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:5-12, Acts 18:24-26, John 1:1-18, Acts 18:24, Psalm 8:null, Acts 15:39, Mark 13:1-8, Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16:, 1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10
Preaching Commentary Introduction, 1:1-4 While Hebrews is an anonymous letter, it is interesting to note that the KJV’s first verse is, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time...
John 1:14, Hebrews 11:10, John 14:2-3, Psalm 90:1, Hebrews 13:14, Luke 2:1-10
Home shall men come To an older place than Eden And a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star; To the things that cannot be and that are, To the place where God was homeless...
Ezekiel 144:6, Colossians 3:5, 1 John 5:21, 1 Corinthians 10:14, Jeremiah 10:14-15, Matthew 22:34-40, Exodus 20:3
Tertullian was an early church leader (a bishop in Carthage) in North Africa. His voluminous writing and ministry have led many to acknowledge him as the father of Latin Theology/Western Theology. Ter...
Adam was called by God to take care of Eden. But it was too much work for one man. Eden was massive. Adam was incapable of gardening the whole thing. He needed help. That’s why God created Eve. Go...
Almighty Father, whose blessed Son before his passion prayed for his disciples that they might be one, as you and he are one: Grant that your Church, being bound together in love and obedience to you,...