Introduction This text is used in the first week of Advent, but preparing for Jesus' return isn't something for just one time of the year. For a treatment that is more focused on Advent, see ...
Like a smartphone screen made blank by the rays of direct sunshine, one day we shall see Christ’s face. On that day, all the vain spectacles in this world of illusions and all the pixelated idols of o...
Luke 24:1-12, Luke 15:11-32, Acts 7:54-60, John 21:15-19, Matthew 25:1-13, Revelation 22:12
Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...
...left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we ...
In the “new heaven and the new earth” nothing that has ever been done or suffered in true self-abandonment will be lost. . . . All the treasures of the world will be brought into it. But they will be ...
I command you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, that you keep the commandment without spot, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the blessed...
Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a), Luke 9:28-43, Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:19, Luke 9:22-27, Exodus 14:19-20, Numbers 9:15-16, Ezekiel 10:, Psalm 18:, Isaiah 4:, Daniel 7:9-14, Exodus 34:29-35, Deuteronomy 18:15-19, 2 Peter 1:16-18, John 1:4-9, John 1:14, Revelation 1:12-16, Exodus 13:21, Exodus 24:15-18, Exodus 40:34-35, 2 Chronicles 5:13-14, Luke 9:37
Preaching Commentary The Context Introduction The Transfiguration stands out like, well, a bright light on a dark mountainside in the Gospel of Luke. The customary earthiness of the rest of the go...
AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Gospel for a Jewish Community Matthew’s Gospel presents a favorable view of the Jewish Law and its traditions. In...
Context This passage takes a number of turns that may, at first, seem disconnected from one another. Our text is part of a larger teaching discourse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel that has been causing te...
Psalm 23:4, John 16:33, Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 27:1, Isaiah 41:10, 1 Peter 5:10
“So to end this time together, I won’t say everything will be okay. How could I know that? I’ll just look you in the eye, give you a nod of solidarity, and smile. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack ...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Back to Bethany The trans-Jordan village of Bethany was the place in which Jesus’ ministry began. It is now the place in which our text...
Context This passage takes a number of turns that may, at first, seem disconnected from one another. Our text is part of a larger teaching discourse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel that has been causing te...
AIM Commentary Introduction: The Unexpected Guests Although it seems to be less frequent in the digital age, “drop-by” visits by neighbors, family or friends often leave us unprepared. We haven’t ...
Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and ha...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Gospel for a Jewish Community Matthew’s Gospel presents a favorable view of the Jewish Law and its traditions. In contrast to Luke...
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of ...
Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-table expression being “p...
Mark 13:24-37, Daniel 7:13-14, Revelation 21:null, Revelation 21:3-4
Advent 2023: Make some noise Alive, Awake, and Alert AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? The Worst Is Yet To Come I wonder if some of Jesus’ Galilean crew regre...
Call to Confession: The prophet asks the Lord’s people, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.” ...
Let us consider this settled: that no one who has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection... Let us not hesitate to await the Lord’s c...
preaching commentary Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-ta...
Matthew 25:34-40, Acts 2:42-47, Matthew 21:12-13, Luke 10:25-37, Romans 12:2, Matthew 5:13-16
To focus our expectation in an otherworldly salvation has the potential to dissipate our resistance to societal evil and the dedication needed to work for the redemptive transformation of this world.
“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. A voice cries: “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God Every valley shall be lifted up, ...
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5, Revelation 21:2, 10, 22-27, Revelation 22:1-5, 1 Kings 6:20, Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 2:9, Genesis 3:23-24, Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:15, Genesis 3:17-19, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:23, Genesis 1:26-27, Exodus 33:20-23, John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, Mark 15:34, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Exodus 28:15-21, 29-30, John 4:13-14, John 7:37-38, Matthew 27:46, John 3:2, Romans 8:29
Preaching Commentary Pulling Back the Curtain The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on in the wo...
Has not the one God made you? We belong to God in body and in spirit And what does the one God seek? To be on our guard and to be faithful. The Lord will send his messenger, The Lord, whom w...
And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pur...
Isaiah 25:6-9, Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 8:4-5, Luke 24:36-43, Revelation 21:1-5, Psalm 16:11
One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...
The mouth filled with real laughter…is an image representing the end of days, the overcoming of separateness and closure. In this world, it remains a mere possibility that constantly destroys itself.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (ex...