Let me share one more lesson I am learning about daily surrender. It concerns the way we relate to others. Daily we encounter people who express views opposite to our own, hold values with which we ca...
Isaiah 53:3–5, Daniel 3:16–18, Micah 6:6–8, Matthew 23:23–24, Luke 4:16–30, Psalm 2:1
Jesus, as always, gets caught in the middle—along with a good number of his followers. Many people in America today were brought up in strict Christian homes and churches of one sort or another. There...
The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ...
Mark 10:13-16, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 9:10-13, John 15:15, Mark 5:35-43
A group of fourth-graders at a Christian school was given an assignment to draw what they would like to do if Jesus spent a day with them. After working diligently on their pictures, one little girl a...
Sisters and brothers, no one can follow Jesus for you or me. That’s something we have to do for ourselves. But when we do, that’s when real life begins. So go out into the world this week, living real...
John 1:46, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, Matthew 20:16, Luke 1:51-53, James 2:1-9, Matthew 11:25, Isaiah 52:2-3, Philippians 2:5-8
The world has always despised people from the wrong places and with the wrong credentials. We are always trying to justify ourselves. We need desperately to feel superior to others. And everything abo...
In The Chimes, the second of Charles Dickens five Christmas stories, nine-year old Lillian Fern, orphaned and under the guardianship of her father’s brother Will, is taken in for the night by Tobias (...
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children...
John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, Luke 19:10
A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...
Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the ‘second mile,’ turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just...
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...
Matthew 14:22-23, Mark 4:35-41, James 1:2-4, Acts 27:13-26, Jonah 1:4-16
The disciples are tossed on the waves again. They are in a storm, fully as bad as the previous one. Gently and by degrees he excites and urges the disciples on toward greater responsiveness, even to t...
Setting the Context: After the introductory tag from 2:14a this week’s text begins with “therefore” in 2:36 (Greek oun , which is the second word in verse 36 in the Greek text), making it especially...
Matthew 6:1-6, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Matthew 23:4, 5, 13-36, Mark 12:42, Luke 21:2, Isaiah 58:6, Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with heart, soul, and m...
Isaiah 41:10 , Exodus 3:7-8 , 1 Kings 19:9-13, John 11:32-35, Matthew 14:26-31, Psalm 34:18
One night a friend asked his handicapped son, “Daniel, when you see Jesus looking at you, what do you see in His eyes?” After a pause, the boy replied, “His eyes are filled with tears, Dad.” “...
When Jesus invites people to follow him, he doesn’t forecast the outcomes nor guarantee change overnight. He doesn’t promise that we’ll stop cussing in traffic tomorrow and never do it again, or that ...
Mark 2:17, Luke 15:1-2, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 11:28-30, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20
But it wasn’t just his new message that made Jesus irresistible. It was Jesus himself. People who were nothing like him liked him. And Jesus liked people who were nothing like him. Jesus invited unbel...
Throughout two thousand years of history, Christians, both whole churches and individual believers, have consistently been able to ignore many of Jesus’ key commandments and invitations. We have eithe...
Matthew 16:21-28, Genesis 4:1-11, Psalm 62:12, Proverbs 24:12, Luke 9:51
At the Turning Point Following Simon Peter’s climatic height of his faith, his confession that Jesus was the “Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Peter now exemplifies our humbling, human tendency t...
Colossians 1:15-17, 2 Corinthians 3:18, John 13:34-35, 1 John 2:6, Luke 10:30-37, Matthew 25:35-40
His tattoos were flames that licked their way up his neck to his cheekbones. I had caught sight of him only from a distance while I was preaching, a visitor I’d not yet had a chance to meet. But this ...
Pastor Matt Chandler describes a humorous encounter with his daughter that illustrates the absurdity of assuming we know better than God. Just as a small child couldn’t possibly know better than a par...
Mark 8:35-36, Mark 10:25, Matthew 19:16-26, Luke 18:18-29
Those not familiar with ancient Greek philosophy may be surprised to find deep resonance with the teachings of Jesus. When on trial for his life, the 70-year-old Socrates pugnaciously responded that,...
Does the Gospel I preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full-time students of Jesus? Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural “next step”...
Context of the Passage Mark explicitly states at the beginning of our text that the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. The important question to ask then, is why? This question wasn’t asked in a vacuum....
Genesis 16:, 2 Samuel 9:, Jonah 3:4 , Luke 7:36-50, Matthew 9:9-13 , Psalm 146:7-9
In his book Breaking the Rules , Fil Anderson talks about the scandalous reputation of Jesus: He breaks all social etiquette in relating to people. He acknowledges no barriers or human divisions....
John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, John 10:30, 1 John 4:8-16, Romans 8:32
A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...
Philippians 2:3-4, Galatians 2:20, James 1:19-20, Romans 12:3, Proverbs 15:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 11:28
Arguments won’t change people. Simply giving away kindness won’t either. Only Jesus has the power to change people, and it will be harder for them to see Jesus if their view of Him is blocked by our b...
Context of the Passage Mark explicitly states at the beginning of our text that the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. The important question to ask then, is why? This question wasn’t asked in a vacuum....