psalms from john 18

We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? The Great High Priest Throughout Hebrews “high priest” is a dominant motif and title for Jesus Christ. While Jesus is, of course, the Lamb of God, ...

Jesus is understood in the light of the assumptions which control our culture.  When “reason” is invoked as a parallel or supplementary authority to “Scripture” and “tradition,” what is happening is t...

Christ the King Sunday Christ the King Sunday reminds us that Christ has ascended to sit at the right hand of God and will come again to rule and judge. This Sunday’s readings might initially feel a...

Preaching Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Israel’s State of Mind The Book of Isaiah is a remarkable accounting of the history of the relationship people o...

Preaching Commentary The lectionary text from John is an exceedingly long passage, but covers the main events that we commemorate on Good Friday. For that reason, I am going to break up the text int...

He [Jesus] was not the king they expected. He wasn’t like the monarchs of old who sat on their jeweled and ivory thrones, dispensing their justice and wisdom. Nor was he the great warrior-king some ha...

Cody is a member of our church who moved to Thailand to share the gospel with college students. One night, a student named Annan invited Cody to go to a movie. The two of them arrived and sat down in ...

In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....

Preaching Commentary What is “Good” about Friday? For the work-a-day world in the United States of America, Fridays are good. TGIF, “Thank God It’s Friday!” is an interjection we use to convey reli...

Preaching Commentary God's Sovereignty The sovereignty of God is a pervasive theme in the Bible, expressed in a variety of ways. Daniel’s vision is one of those expressions and a bit more chall...

The lectionary text from John is an exceedingly long passage, but covers the main events that we commemorate on Good Friday. For that reason, I am going to break up the text into manageable chunks. I ...

Preaching Commentary Introduction The lectionary text from John is an exceedingly long passage, but covers the main events that we commemorate on Good Friday. For that reason, I am going to break u...

Lord John Culpepper was witness to a dramatic turn of events in English history. He was a member of the privy council of King Charles I, who was executed in 1649, apparently contrary to the law and th...

In her book Invitation to Retreat , Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking inattentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own d...

The British novelist George MacDonald loved writing stories about princes and princesses. At one point in his life, someone asked him why he focused so much of his writing on them. His answer was prof...

In a culture, the most important things usually go without being said. We Westerners don’t talk all the time about being individualists or about the importance of efficiency or why we prefer youth ove...

In his wonderful book, God’s Big Picture, Vaughan Roberts gives readers an overview of the Bible, focusing on the importance of context for developing a deeper understanding of holy scripture. In this...

In 1987 director Bernardo Bertolucci released the film The Last Emperor to raving reviews. It was based on the autobiography of the last living emperor of the Manchu dynasty in China, Henry Aisin-Gior...