… so that I might preach him among the Gentiles,
Summary: Change can be good, but it is always change, and change requires that we let go of the old and embrace the new.
Continue reading “Galatians 1:16b – One-Eighty”Ephesians 6:18c – Request Granted
… with all kinds of prayers and requests.
Summary: All who believe are called to be part of the body of Christ. As Paul reminds us, there are many different parts in the body. All of us need the armor of God, and all of us have questions.
Continue reading “Ephesians 6:18c – Request Granted”Ephesians 4:15a – AH-OO-GA!
Instead, speaking the truth in love …
Summary: Some phrases in the Bible set off alarms with this writer. Today’s passage is one of them. We need to carefully consider the nature of truth and the meaning of love to avoid misapplying Paul’s instruction.
Continue reading “Ephesians 4:15a – AH-OO-GA!”Hebrews 5:14 – Chewing on the Word
But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Summary: Living for Christ is a full-time job. When we first taste salvation, we are challenged to repent and taste the solid food of righteousness.
Continue reading “Hebrews 5:14 – Chewing on the Word”John 8:44 — Bad Dad
… he is a liar and the father of lies.
Summary: They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Fortunately for humanity, our God is able to take bad apples and make them good again.
Continue reading “John 8:44 — Bad Dad”Understanding … Not – John 10: 6
Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
”Very truly I tell you Pharisees…” but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
Understanding requires a willingness to see something that you have not seen before. Sometimes being able to “see” something you have not seen before requires letting go of your present point of view – at least for a moment or two.
The Pharisees held firmly to the point of view that they were God’s chosen people and that they, in particular, were chosen to keep control of the rules that others had to live by. Jesus did not follow their rules (man’s rules) and instead followed rules that they did not recognize (God’s rules).
For the Pharisees to understand what Jesus was telling them, they would have to at least pretend for a moment that Jesus could be who he says he is. If they could have done that, they might have been able to understand what he was saying to them.
Continue reading “Understanding … Not – John 10: 6”Disbelief
They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.
John 9: 18
What is a formerly blind man to do when people don’t believe he was blind? Even people who knew him or had at least seen him often argued about whether or not he was the same man. To my knowledge blindness was not one of the illnesses that would be considered “unclean” so there was no need for this man to go to the temple to be declared “clean” after he was healed. Even so, he was taken before the Pharisees by those who first encountered him after he was able to see. After explaining what happened to the Pharisees, they did not believe the man’s story.
Continue reading “Disbelief”Guilty of Sin
Jesus is the only person who ever walked the earth and did not sin. Now to be accurate we need to realize that what is meant by “sin” in this context means to sin against God. As far as the Pharisees were concerned Jesus “sinned” all of the time because he did not follow all of their rules. Obviously just because Jesus didn’t sin against God did not mean he did not sin against the Pharisees.
Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?
John 8:46a
Continue reading “Guilty of Sin”Time Warp – Happy New Year!
Our last post was about the arrival of the Magi and the discussion question led us to ponder about the memories of the Pharisees. Many of them would have been between the ages of twenty to forty years old when Jesus was born in Bethlehem and when the Magi cause such a disturbance in Israel with their announcement that they were here to honor the newborn king. As we jump back into the Gospel of John we find Jesus arguing with those same Pharisees who were in Jerusalem thirty-some years earlier when the Magi caused such a stir.
Continue reading “Time Warp – Happy New Year!”