Blog: March 2018

What a jarring juxtaposition:  this Sunday will be both Easter and April Fool’s Day.  Talk about two celebrations moving in different directions!  What are we supposed to do with that kind of overlap? I like the story of a BBC news radio report on April 1, 1976, explain­ing that the alignment of two planets would, at 9:47 a.m. that day, produce a gravitational effect such that, if you jumped up at just that moment, you’d begin to float.  I can picture the public trying it out! There are so many prank stories.  And why not have a moment on ...

Nancy Guthrie has assembled a wonderful collection of essays about “experiencing the passion and power of Easter,” Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross.  I was especially encouraged this week when I revisited chapter 20, “The Most Important Word in the Universe,” by Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr.  A title like that grabs the reader’s curiosity.  So, what is the word? Propitiation. Of course, some may object—what about, say, “God”?  Fair enough—one can surely make a case.  But take a moment to hear Ray Ortlund out. To “propitiate” is “to render ...

The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday—the day Jesus entered Jerusalem as the King of kings the week of Passover. Many of God’s people traveled to Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus and His disciples traveled to Jerusalem as well. Near Bethphage (BETH fayj) and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples ahead into a village. Jesus told them, “You will find a young donkey tied there. No one has ever sat on it. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” Jesus would ...

The other day I sat down to read the Apostle Paul’s First letter to the Thessalonians.  And I was struck by his repeated attention to Jesus’ “coming.”  That is, to the Lord’s future appearing—the Second Coming (see 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:2, 23).  Paul served and taught and wrote and lived with a grand anticipation of the Day of the Lord. Is that how we live—today, in 2018?  Does the looming, awesome, climactic appearing of Jesus tower over our daily duties and our dreams of tomorrow?  Are our decisions about career and relation­ships and ...

The first words of Jesus reported in Mark’s Gospel are these:  After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (1:14-15).  The gospel message says, “Repent and believe.”  The coming of God’s reign through Jesus issues a call to humanity:  trust and turn; turn and trust.  Repent and believe. Faith and repentance are two sides of one coin.  We cannot turn TO Jesus in faith without turning FROM other “gods” ...

Imagine having a degenerative nerve disease that causes chronic pain and burning in your arms, and renders you so weak you can’t button your own shirt.  That’s the predicament of Dave Furman, pastor of Redeemer Church of Dubai and author of the new book, Kiss the Wave:  Embracing God in Your Trials. “Kiss the wave”?  The title comes from Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century English preacher who suffered intensely from rheumatism, gout, kidney problems, and depression:  “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of ...

Peter—one of Jesus’ original disciples—had grown up in a culture where the Jews believed that God only cared about them, not the Gentiles or non-Jews. Most of the Jews looked down on the Gentiles and refused to even associate with them because Jews believed Gentiles were unclean; Gentiles didn’t live the right way to please God. Any Jew who did associate with Gentiles did so at the risk of being ridiculed by his own people. After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, God shared with Peter that He loved not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as ...

In John 8:1-11, Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees who bring an adulterer to him for punishment, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then, after the accusers relent, he says to the offender, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more.” But if you look carefully, our Bibles include editorial notes indicating that John 8:1-11 has only tenuous manuscript support.  That is, as ESV editors state, “The earliest manuscripts do not include John 7:53-8:11.”  Best, then, to depend on other Bible ...