1 Chronicles 4:9-10, Matthew 6:6, Luke 11:9, Philippians 4:6, James 5:16
First Chronicles 4:9-10 could be forgiven for being called the text that roared, once Bruce Wilkinson got his hands on it and wrote a little book called The Prayer of Jabez. This book, which was relea...
Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...
Matthew 1:1-6, Luke 5:31-32, Matthew 9:12-13, Matthew 5:3, Galatians 3:26-28
We find hope in the ancestry of Jesus that no matter what we’ve done or where we come from, we too can be included in Jesus’ family. Jesus does not look for people who are perfect and have never faile...
Matthew 1:, Luke 1:26-38, 2 Samuel 11:12, Ruth 1:4, Joshua 2:
Through Jesus’s family tree, God puts his grace on display. God is reminding us that he can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves: pick up broken pieces and put them together, take broken lives an...
One generation and another generation; the generation by which we are made the faithful, and are born again by baptism; the generation by which we shall rise again from the dead, and shall live with t...
Every year at Christmastime, the world looks back two thousand years to the birth of a baby. But for more than four thousand years, people living on the other side of that birth looked forward to the ...
Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation of saint and sinner, Draw near and forgive us. Forgive us for clinging to law more than grace. Forgive us for choosing slavery when you offer us adoption. Forgi...
Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the nov...
Sisters and brothers, we are so fortunate that the Bible wrote down all the different ways people failed to follow God, because we also get to see how deep God’s fogiveness and love are through those ...
Many first-century Jews thought of themselves as living in a continuing narrative stretching from earliest times, through ancient prophecies, and on toward a climactic moment of deliverance which migh...
Context Standard Letter Format Recall the Greco-Roman letter form that Paul uses in Ephesians: Salutation and Greeting Thanksgiving Body Exhortations/Encouragements Closing/Farewell...
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. Obeyed and went, And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Loving God, give us...
Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int...
Pastor: Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. In the trials of this past week, I have not praised you but have forgotten your wondrous works. Al...
Luke 12:33-34, Luke 18:28-30, Acts 2:44-45, Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 14:26
Family and property, then, were not for the ancient Jew simply what they are to the modern western world. Both carried religious and cultural significance far beyond personal, let alone “individual,” ...
From its very beginning the Bible sees human life in terms of relationships...The Bible does not speak about "humanity" but about "all the families of the earth" or "all the n...
Mark 12:37, Matthew 19:24, Matthew 7:5, Mark 3:25, Mark 7:27, Mark 8:15, Luke 15:11–32, Luke 10:25–37, Luke 18:9–14-, 25:31–46
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...
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...
In Understanding Genesis Nahum Sarna explodes the myth that in the story of Cain and Abel represents a biblical preference for the shepherd over the tiller of the soil. He points out that “there is no...
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you a...
Our Story starts with a person for another reason…God is the very first piece of the Christian Story because the Story is all about him. God is the central character. The Story does not start with us ...
Leader: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. People: Jesus was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one t...
[T]here are only two stories that make any difference—God’s story and the human story. We all are living out different versions of those two stories with an infinite number of variations. God’s story,...
Our Scriptures that bring us the story of our salvation ground us in place. Everywhere they insist on this grounding. Everything that is critically important to us takes place on the ground. Mountains...
We're in the presence of a good story when the flaw that shatters shalom is also the doorway to redemption... Whether it be our own flaw or the sin of others, God uses the raw material of sin to c...
Pastor: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant." All: "for he who is mighty has done great things ...
Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 18:22-35, Luke 16:19-31, Matthew 13:3-8, Matthew 20:1-16, Matthew 13:24-33, Matthew 13:44-50, Mark 4:26-29
The thrust of the parables is to subvert the distorted myths in which people live their lives. To understand what we mean by “living in a myth” just think of a couple of our own contemporary myths. Ta...
When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories...
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who who creates families for our belonging: We ask for your continual care for the homes in which your people live. Keep them from all bitterness, arrogance, and the...