Isaiah 40:1-11, Lamentations 1:2, Lamentations 1:9, Lamentations 1:17, Lamentations 1:21, Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2-3, Luke 3:4-6, John 1:23
Advent 2020: Tear Down the Heavens Comfort My People Updated & expanded for 2023 AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Longing created by exile While crise...
Advent 2020: Tear Down the Heavens Dressed in Righteousness Updated & expanded for 2023 AIM Commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Living as Captives Our text t...
Isaiah 40:1-11, Lamentations 1:2, Lamentations 1:9, Lamentations 1:17, Lamentations 1:21, Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2-3, Luke 3:4-6, John 1:23, Lamentations 1:2, Isaiah 40:null, Isaiah 40:3, Mark 1:14, Isaiah 40:1-11
Ancient lens What's the historical context? Longing created by exile While crises seem innumerable in the OT, none could compare to the crisis of exile. Babylon, in 587 BC, destroys the city ...
Ancient lens What's the historical context? Living as Captives Our text today matches, at least in part, last week’s lectionary passage (Isaiah 40). Just as in Isaiah 40, a message of comfort...
Preaching Commentary Paul’s Prize Fight Paul pulls no punches in this letter to the church of Ephesus. It is an onslaught of theological intensity from the first ring of the bell. Like a prize figh...
Luke 6:27-38, Isaiah 50:6, Lamentations 3:28-30, Psalm 37:null, Romans 5:7-8, Matthew 18:23-35, Deuteronomy 10:17-19, Leviticus 19:33-34, Ephesians 2:11-22, Galatians 3:28
Preaching Commentary The context Having addressed his disciples with the blessings and woes (6:20-26), Jesus now addresses the multitude of people (6:17, cf. 7:1). As with the blessings and woes, L...
But hope is hard to come by. I should know. I remember the time when I was once busy dying. It wasn’t long after I had broken my neck in a diving accident that I spent one particularly hopeless week i...
Luke 6:27-38, Isaiah 50:6, Lamentations 3:28-30, Psalm 37:null, Romans 5:7-8, Matthew 18:23-35, Deuteronomy 10:17-19, Leviticus 19:33-34, Ephesians 2:11-22, Galatians 3:28
The context Having addressed his disciples with the blessings and woes (6:20-26), Jesus now addresses the multitude of people (6:17, cf. 7:1). As with the blessings and woes, Luke records four impera...
Prayer of Adoration Joyful, joyful we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love – Holy and wonderful are You: Your grace is without measure, and Your purpose sure and true; Your power is unequaled and Y...
Isaiah 57:15, Psalm 42:1-2, 2 Corinthians 8:9, Matthew 18:3-4, Lamentations 3:22-23, Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 19:1-10
Lord, we confess that we do not love you with our whole hearts And we do not love our neighbour as ourselves. We seek the blessing of others Rather than the blessing of your grace We seek comfort in w...
Your mercies are new every morning, oh Lord. You renew us on a regular basis. Every day we fall short. You have made us righteous through the power of Jesus, but take Jesus’ sacrifice for granted. Ple...
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. May the God of mercy, who forgives us all our sins, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life...
We bless you, O God, most high and Lord of mercy. You are always doing great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful, and without number. You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmitie...
Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 13:44, Lamentations 3:22-23, Psalm 139:7-10, 1 John 1:9, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Luke 2:1-20, John 4:7-26, John 21:1-14, Luke 24:13-35, Matthew 17:1-8, Luke 2:25-38, Luke 1:35-38, Hebrews 13:2, Isaiah 43:19
Almighty God, you have surprised us with your presence in unexpected ways. In the expectations of our routine, we have missed the treasure that you place before us. We come to worship you in community...
Romans 7:15-20, 1 John 1:9, Hebrews 10:26, Romans 8:1, 1 John 1:9, Lamentations 3:22-23
He hurls our sins overboard. What a picture of the way God treats our sins. Corrie ten Boom, a dear saint of the last century, used to say, “And then God put up a sign saying, `No fishing allowed.”‘ W...
In this first-person memoir, Pastor Peter Chin shares a story that most pastors can probably relate to, the reality vs the expectation of a church-planter or even the pastor of an established church: ...
The Scottish pastor Ian MacLaren (1850–1907), renowned for his stories set in rural Scotland, was once asked near the end of his career what he would have done differently. His response was both simpl...
In her memoir, Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Tammy describes the internal turmoil she experienced trying to be a good, rule-following Christian who had unexpectedly built an entire life arou...
Psalm 42:1-2, 1 Samuel 1:9-18, Psalm 63:1, Luke 15:11-32, Lamentations 3:19-24, Romans 8:22-23, Exodus 2:23-25, Hosea 3:1, John 20:11-18
In 1998, Nick Cave*, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of t...
1 John 1:9, Romans 7:15-20, Galatians 5:16-17, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:8-9, James 1:22-25, Lamentations 3:22-23
Gracious God, you forgive us whenever we ask, and so we ask you now to forgive all of our sins. We need your grace again, for we often return to the same sins, over and over again. Your Spirit longs t...
Lamentations 3:22-23, Psalm 136:1, Matthew 19:13-15, 1 John 4:9-10, Mark 10:21, Proverbs 3:5-6, John 15:5, Psalm 121:1-2
Father, as adults, we can fool ourselves into being quite self-sufficient. Yet, You have called us to be precariously dependent upon You. When we see how Jesus welcomes the little children, we can als...
One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...
An Irish Catholic priest, returning to his old parish in the warmth of spring, was delighted to spot an elderly man he had long known. “Pat!” he called out cheerfully. “You’re still with us—I’m glad t...
We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...
Get to know someone really well, and almost without fail, you will discover a person who routinely struggles to get out of bed in the morning. And not just because they’re tired. They can’t get out of...
Psalm 37:7, Proverbs 19:2, Lamentations 3:25-26, 2 Peter 3:9, James 5:7-8, Ecclesiastes 3:1
In our culture slow is a pejorative. When somebody has a low IQ, we dub him or her slow. When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it slow. When a movie is boring, again, we complain that it’...
To make suggests making something out of something else the way a carpenter makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggests making something out of nothing the way an artist makes paintings or poem...