I’d grown up in a Boston suburb where people’s homes were set behind deep hedges or protected by huge yards and neighbors hardly knew each other. And they didn’t need to: nothing ever happened in my t...
Many Israelites Had Leprosy, but Naaman Was Healed As we go from mountains to fresh water, we go from Elijah to Elisha. Despite having a double dose of Elijah’s power and a fraction of his hair, Eli...
The term patrilineal has to do with tracing ancestral descent (and therefore tribal affiliation and inheritance) through the male line. In Israel the possessions of a particular lineage were carefully...
Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Joshua 24:15, Matthew 6:24, Luke 10:41-42, Matthew 7:13-14 , Psalm 16:11
I had a memorable lunch a few years ago with my friends Mike and Claudia, who had recently returned from Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa. We were sitting in a booth at one of those chai...
Joshua 1:9, Psalm 27:1, Ezekiel 22:30, Nehemiah 4:13-14, John 1:5, John 15:13, Romans 12:1, Isaiah 61:4
On the evening of October 15, 1940, London experienced one of the fiercest attacks of the Blitz. A total of 480 German aircraft dropped approximately 386 tons of high explosives and 70,000 incendiary ...
Mark 1:16-28, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 16:11-15, Joshua 21:32
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...
Numbers 12:null, Joshua 2:null, Matthew 9:9, Mark 5:1-10, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 19:1-10, John 4:1-42, Galatians 3:28
Belonging can be such a fickle and painful process in life. As the popular researcher and writer Brené Brown describes in her book, Braving the Wilderness, she struggled to fit in after moving to New ...
2 Kings 5:1-14, Joshua 12:1-3, Joshua 12:1-3, Luke 4:27
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. Th...
As you go forth from this place, may you have the courage to confront the dark places. May you trust in God’s goodness to lead you to the living water. May you act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly ...
Discouraged not by difficulties without, or the anguish of ages within, the heart listens to a secret voice that whispers: "Be not dismayed; in the future lies the Promised Land.
Mark 1:16-28, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 16:11-15, Joshua 21:32
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...
Mark 7:1-23, Mark 7:1-12, Isaiah 29:13, Exodus 12:6-20, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Joshua 4:1-9
Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ...
Your decisions . . . along with your responses to other people’s decisions, which are also your decisions...are about the only thing you can control in life, which means your decisions are how you con...
1 Timothy 6:6-19, Deuteronomy 6:5, Deuteronomy 5:21, Isaiah 1:23, Joshua 1:7, Psalm 62:9-10, Matthew 7:24-25, Luke 12:15, Luke 12:32-34
Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________. If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter and this passage...
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, Mark 7:11-12, Isaiah 29:13, Exodus 12:6-20, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Joshua 4:1-9
Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ...
Journalist Eric Severeid recalls a valuable lesson he learned at seventeen while preparing for an ambitious journey. He and a friend had set out to canoe from Minneapolis to the historic fur-trading p...
In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying: About twelve years ago, I heard a ...
James 1:22-24, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Timothy 2:15, Philippians 4:9, Joshua 1:8, Matthew 7:24-25, Colossians 3:16
Reading the Bible without applying it to your life can be downright dangerous. On August 3, 1996, Melvin Hitchens, sat on his front porch and read the Bible. After his Bible reading, this 66 year old ...
1 Timothy 6:6-19, Deuteronomy 6:5, Deuteronomy 5:21, Isaiah 1:23, Joshua 1:7, Psalm 62:9-10, Matthew 7:24-25, Luke 12:15, Luke 12:32-34
AIM Commentary Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________. If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter...
It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transiti...
Genesis 12:1-4, Joshua 3:14-17, 1 Samuel 17:32-50 , Matthew 14:28-31, Psalm 34:8 , Acts 10:9-16
I…vividly remember one of my teachers telling the story of three young boys whose route to school went alongside a high wall. Every day as the boys walked to school, they wondered what was on the othe...
Transition is one of the givens in our lives, and we only live well, we only manage our lives well, when we manage these transitions well. Our world changes; the circumstances of our lives change. The...
Exodus 16:3, Numbers 14:4, Luke 5:37-38, Isaiah 43:19, Joshua 1:9
Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal...
An elderly gentleman was out walking with his young grandson. ‘How far are we from home?’ he asked the grandson. The boy answered, ‘Grandpa, I don’t know.’ The grandfather asked, ‘Well, where are you?...
You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’