Luke 24:36b-48, Luke 24:36-48, Luke 24:1-12, Luke 24:13-15, Luke 24:36-48, Luke 24:47-48, John 20:19-29, John 14:27, Luke 24:37, Luke 24:39-43, Romans 5:12, Romans 5:17, Colossians 1:null, Luke 24:44-49, Luke 24:46-47, Luke 24:48-49, John 16:7
Preaching Commentary Context Post-Resurrection Appearances The four Gospel writers vary in which and how many of Jesus’ thirteen post-resurrection appearances they choose to record. Luke reserves ...
Post-Resurrection Appearances The four Gospel writers vary in which and how many of Jesus’ thirteen post-resurrection appearances they choose to record. Luke reserves each one of the five episodes co...
Preaching Commentary Ministry Ain't Easy Ministry is arduous. While it is difficult to deal with the day-in, day-out dramas that can come from dealing with people, imagine the grind of constan...
Deuteronomy 25:4, 1 Samuel 15:2-3, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Matthew 5:38-48, John 6:66-69 , Psalm 103:8-12
The experience of Barry Taylor, former rock musician and now pastor, suggests a reason. He told me, “In the early 1970s my best friend became a Jesus freak. I thought he was crazy, so I started search...
Preaching Commentary What, then, does the author intend to communicate in verses 1-4? He proclaims that an authoritative and authentic high priest must both identify with and be distinct from those...
Judges 16:1-31, Job 1:6-22, 2 Samuel 13:1-22, Matthew 14:1-12, Luke 23:13-25, Psalm 22:1-31
The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...
Two-thirds of the story of redemption is known to Christians as the Old Testament. Yet in the decades that I have been teaching Bible, I have found that most Christians, if allowed to answer honestly,...
Many Israelites Had Leprosy, but Naaman Was Healed As we go from mountains to fresh water, we go from Elijah to Elisha. Despite having a double dose of Elijah’s power and a fraction of his hair, Eli...
In the Old Testament, the book of Psalms is called, in Hebrew, “The Praises.” And yet the single largest category of “praises” within it consists of laments! That is, people were bringing before God t...
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35
Many people these days feel an absence in their lives, expressed as an acute desire for “something more,” a spiritual home, a community of faith. But when they try to read the Bible they end up throwi...
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...
Robinson's Winsome Faith I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays for some time now. Of her fiction, I’ve read Gilead , reflections of a retired minister written for his ...
Andy’s children are avid readers. He has just bought the latest whodunnit for Matt. Lizzie announces that she wants to read it too. The bookshop is out of stock and Lizzie will accept no substitute, n...
The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...
Contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament is not a hodgepodge of unrelated materials thrown together by some late, uninformed redactor. Nor has it come to us as the result of an empty-headed secr...
Ministry Ain't Easy Ministry is arduous. While it is difficult to deal with the day-in, day-out dramas that can come from dealing with people, imagine the grind of constantly sacrificing animals...
The Old Testament isn’t written in order simply to “tell us about God” in the abstract. It isn’t designed primarily to provide information, to satisfy the inquiring mind. It’s written to tell the stor...
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 ...
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...
The Old Testament Hebrew word for blessing means the transmission or endowment of the power of God’s goodness or favor. And the Old Testament affirms that God is the source of the favor and well-being...
The Old Testament on its own is an unfinished story; a promise without a fulfilment. We must read on to the New Testament if we want to know what it really means. And the New Testament constantly look...
Scripture does not say God owes us a long life. But paradoxically, this does not mean that we accept suffering and death with a stoic fatalism. Instead, God’s people lament. In the Old Testament, not ...
In the Law and the Prophets, God reaches out to man. The initiative is His. He communicates, we receive. Our God-given free will allows us to be receptive, to be accepting, to turn a deaf ear, to reje...
It is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings…If there is any c...
What, then, does the author intend to communicate in verses 1-4? He proclaims that an authoritative and authentic high priest must both identify with and be distinct from those to whom he ministers. ...
Genesis 22:1-19, Exodus 32:1-35, Ecclesiastes 1:1-18, Matthew 20:1-16 , John 6:53-66, Psalm 73:1-28
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...
In the Old Testament there is no timeless space, but there is also no spaceless time. There is rather storied place, that is a place which has meaning because of the history lodged there. There are st...