This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Road Trips II . For more Summer Settings sermon guides, click below. Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered A...
Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination. Today we move forward to Saul on...
Gandalf: I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone. Bilbo: I should think so—in these parts! We are plain, quiet folk and have n...
Not long ago I came upon a wreck on a road that leads from our national office to our local church. It appeared that the wreck had happened only minutes before I arrived. A car was completely overturn...
Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28, 1 Kings 17:7, Acts 15:, John 5:1-9, John 16:7
Preaching Commentary Approaching a Difficult Text I think it’s good to start with the observation that Matthew 15:21-28 is not an easy or straightforward text. Trying to turn it into an easy text w...
Matthew 15:null, 1 Kings 17:7, Matthew 15:null, John 5:1-9, John 16:7
Approaching a Difficult Text I think it’s good to start with the observation that Matthew 15:21-28 is not an easy or straightforward text. Trying to turn it into an easy text will probably leave your...
For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea “oceans.” The point is to relate our present-day affinity for the ocean, seashore, and beach...
This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide. For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea “oceans.” The poi...
1 Kings 19:11-13, Exodus 33:12-14, Isaiah 30:15-21, Mark 5:25-34, Mark 1:35-38, Psalm 46:10
Jesus knew his spiritual journey depended on responsiveness to God’s invitations. Although his job was the most crucial in human history, Jesus did not get compulsive, preoccupied or unable to practic...
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say, 'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the jou...
Immanuel, you are God with us. You abide with us through it all. While you journey alongside us in life, you are speaking to us. We admit to you that we do not listen to your voice. We read Scripture ...
Voice 1: Words! Voice 2: By them the universe was created: planets and moons, stars and sky, all living things, day and night. People: We come today to worship and adore the Creator of this world and...
In a time where leader after leader's calls end in disgrace, it is helpful to remember that finishing, not starting, is what is most important. The following story illustrates this well: Two ship...
Let us, who are on the way, hasten home; for our whole life is like the journey of a single day. Our first duty is to love nothing here; but let us place our affections above, our desires above, our w...
Now I could see in my dream that the High-way Christian was to travel on was protection on either side by a Wall, and the Wall was called Salvation. Burdened Christian began to run up the High-way, bu...
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you start...
John 14:6, Matthew 7:13-14, Acts 24:14, Luke 9:23, Psalm 1:1-2, Psalm 25:4-5
[The] earliest name for Christianity was the Way, suggesting that it was not a set of doctrines to master but a path to travel. Suggesting that each step was a deepening of the familiar and a discover...
This being born again is no longer the active transfer of our will from the realm of inclination into that of obedience. It is, in the sense of the third chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, t...
Mark 6:1-13, Isaiah 11:2, 1 Peter 2:8, Mark 9:42-47, Mark 14:27-29, Mark 4:16-17, 1 Corinthians 1:23
Context As we read the opening chapters of Mark, it becomes clear that Mark is not primarily interested in telling us things about Jesus but showing Jesus to us. We see Jesus the healer, the exor...
Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo...
The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer journey. One can have one without the other. I...
Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo...
Nothing whatever, whether great or small, can happen to a believer, without God's ordering and permission. There is no such thing as "chance," "luck" or "accident" in...
Here’s a true story, from the year 891, of those who cast off in an embodied journey to live “in a state of pilgrimage, for the love of God.” Three Irish pilgrims, Dubslane, Macbeth, and Maelinmun, ma...
Mark 6:1-13, Isaiah 11:2, 1 Peter 2:8, Mark 9:42-47, Mark 14:27-29, Mark 4:16-17, 1 Corinthians 1:23
Context As we read the opening chapters of Mark, it becomes clear that Mark is not primarily interested in telling us things about Jesus but showing Jesus to us. We see Jesus the healer, the exor...
Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer's love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the ...