stories on Jesus' Teaching

One of my daughters has been singing a song about Jesus that contains the line “Jesus was a story-tellin’ man.” When I first heard that line it seemed a bit flip, as so many contemporary Christian son...

We hear of wild new theories about Jesus. Every month or two some publisher comes up with a blockbuster saying that he was a New Age guru, an Egyptian freemason or a hippie revolutionary. Every year o...

In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C...

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What . Miller took this point to an even further extreme. In his book, he tells a story about one occasion when he was speaking to a class at...

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true.  “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

It was late October 1991. The crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail , out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, had taken the vessel five hundred miles out into the Atlantic. A cold front moving along the...

Jacob was on his way back to face his brother Esau whom he had wronged, and he wrestled with the angel until the break of day.  When the angel tried to free himself from Jacob’s persistent grip, Jaco...

I heard a woman named Veda Gill who is the Executive Director, Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan preach on a Palm Sunday. Perhaps you’ve heard this story before, but it is so powerful that I th...

Consider an interview a Christian leader had with a reporter in 2018. The reporter asked why so many Christians were willing to support political candidates who revel in disobeying Jesus’ teachings. “...

A friend of mine, lecturing in a theological college in Kenya, introduced his students to “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” This, he said, was a movement of thought and scholarship that in its ear...

The great American statesman and president Thomas Jefferson was a man of science who did not believe in miracles but really liked Jesus. Unfortunately, right next to Jesus’ ethical teachings are stori...

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent th...

[M]ost Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel or li...

The rabbis say that manna tasted like whatever the Israelites wanted it to taste like. If you were craving chocolate that day, your manna tasted like pain au chocolat; if your palate was set for savor...

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

One day I was teaching on Capitol Hill and at the end of the afternoon one of my colleagues asked me if I knew a particular woman. I said that I did and he told me that she had been found murdered in ...

Pastor Craig Groeschel shares the true story of his “less than promising” career as a pastor. It should serve as a reminder that rejection and criticism are never final, unless we allow them to be: ...

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” “Well,” you say “that is a nice theory—but is it really true?” There is really only one way to find out: Give! Give generously and consistently, ...

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

Justin Martyr (ca. 100–165), the most renowned apologist of the second century, dedicated his life to defending Christianity as the one true philosophy. Engaging the Greek philosophers and intellectua...

When our daughter Sara was four years old, she burst into the house carrying a water-filled baggie in which swam a wide-eyed burst of sunshine. “Look what they gave us at the birthday party!” (Gee tha...

Many Christians know John Newton as the author of the hymn Amazing Grace and other beloved hymns. Fewer know that Newton’s own life matches the beauty of transformation written in Amazing Gra...

There are also many historical examples of Christians faithfully using political means to fight for justice and righteousness.  William Wilberforce: Politician and Abolitionist William Wilber...

I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...

A young lady named Sally took a seminary class taught by Professor Smith, who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day Sally walked into class to find a large target placed on the wall, wit...

Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us.  …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...

Dallas Willard gave a series of lectures on the kingdom of God. In one, he discussed the popularity of the phrase, “The truth will set you free” by putting it in its proper kingdom context: The whole...

R. C. Sproul recounts an unusual healing by Jesus. In Mark 8, when Jesus visits Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to him to be healed. Jesus leads him out of the village, puts saliva on his eyes, and ...

I remember being with a Christian student on a beach during an evangelism training week. Bob and I met several religious skeptics and began talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversati...

When singer John Davidson was learning to drive, his father, a Baptist minister, offered him a deal: he could have a car if he earned straight “B’s” on his report card, read the Bible more, and got a ...