My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...
Context This week’s reading from Acts recounts the call to Paul on his second missionary journey to go to Macedonia and his encounter with Lydia in Philippi. Textual Context The structure of the B...
John 4:7-26, John 6:1-15, Galatians 4:21-31, Psalm 42:7, Psalm 121:null
New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains. There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously. Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...
Context This week’s reading from Acts recounts the call to Paul on his second missionary journey to go to Macedonia and his encounter with Lydia in Philippi. Textual Context The structure of the B...
John 4:7-26, 1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 Peter 12:12-23, John 6:1-15, Galatians 4:21-31, Psalm 42:7, Psalm 121:null
New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains. There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously. Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...
Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...
2 Kings 5:1-14, Joshua 12:1-3, Joshua 12:1-3, Luke 4:27
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. Th...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...
Mark 1:16-28, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 16:11-15, Joshua 21:32
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...
Mark 1:16-28, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 16:11-15, Joshua 21:32
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...
In their excellent book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien share the importance of recognizing the lens through which see the world: We speak as insi...
In 1988, I (Randy) moved with my wife and two sons (ages two and eight weeks) from Texas to Sulawesi, an island north of Australia and south of the Philippines. We served as missionaries to a cluster ...
One of the gifts John Wesley left the church is the Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral refers to the four ways we come to know something as true: Scripture (what the Bible teaches), tradition (...
James Brownson describes what he calls a “missional hermeneutic” as observed throughout the New Testament: I call the model I am developing a missional hermeneutic because it springs from a basic obs...
Who's Playing Hooky? There’s a local market not too far from the church – and, sometimes, I’ll go there after Sunday morning services to grab some sweet corn to go with dinner (it’s New Jersey, b...
For the believer in Jesus, every trial of suffering is an opportunity to grow in the faith, to grow in our relationship with the Lord, and to see Him work in our lives in a uniquely personal way that ...
This is the place and this is the time: here and now God waits to break into our experience: to change our minds, to change our lives, to change our ways; To make us see the world and the ...
There is no situation or emotion a human being can experience that is not reflected somewhere in the Psalms. Immersing ourselves in the Psalms and turning them into prayers teaches our hearts the “gra...
These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops,...
A classic mission dilemma: The chief of a village in a remote area, whose people practice a tribal religion, becomes a believer and declares the whole village is now Christian. Most of the leading m...
I once heard the missionary author Elisabeth Elliot tell of accompanying the Auca woman Dayuma from her jungle home in Ecuador to New York City. As they walked the streets, Elliot explained cars, fire...
When we tell a story, a lot goes without being explained. For example, I might say, “After I finished speaking, I looked at the audience. They were all smiling. Someone in the back shot me a big okay....
If we do not accept as good, God’s shaping of our person and life in our own culture, we will never be able to accept his work in the lives of others who are culturally different from us.
John 14:27, Matthew 2:2, Revelation 19:16, John 18:36-37, Revelation 17:14, Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 9:6, Psalm 24:7-10, Colossians 1:15-20, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, John 12:12-16
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...
Titus 2:7-8, Jeremiah 2:4-9, Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:13-16, Genesis 41:
While there is a place for condemning, critiquing, consuming and copying culture, the primary posture Christ followers are to have in the world is as culture makers. In regard to history, the word cul...