Woe to you pretenders. It briefly captures our attention if Jesus says it once. To say it seven times at one sitting captures us for eternity. Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe to you pretenders. Like a methodical boxer, Jesus had picked his spots throughout Matthew’s gospel. The Pharisees were slow-footed heavyweights who stomped and thudded and complained. For three years, they chased Jesus around the ring flailing about […]
Joseph returned home from a busy day at the shop. He smelled like cedar with a hint of balsam. Sons of David deserved a table fit for kings. Mary would love it. He could hardly wait to enjoy their first meal around it as a family. Then the unthinkable happened. Joseph hadn’t seen Mary in three months. She had gone to visit her older cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant with […]
Mom and Dad’s headstone was still the same. As were my memories. The tears were new, though. Amy read a sweet reflection on death as an answer to Christ’s prayer in John 17. The grave is an altar of incense. A fresh grave was dug nearby. I pray that family is comforted by Jesus. In the distance a family released balloons. I pray they will see their child soon. And […]
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous (Rom 5.19). The typological relationship between Adam and Jesus in Romans 5 is a theological gold mine. We can simplify all of humanity down to this relationship. We are sons of Adam until we are sons of Christ. We are old men (Adam) until […]
Matthew wove a subtle thread through his crucifixion account. All the Gospel writers detailed Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, but only Matthew recorded what happened to Judas afterward (Mt 27.3-5; cf. Acts 1.18f.). He did so in such a way to compare and contrast Judas with Peter: two deniers of Jesus. Matthew magnified the sovereignty and grace of Jesus to secure his own despite their failings. Satan tried every tactic to […]
There is only one kind of Christian life. Every Christian shares the same calling as every other Christian because we all share one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Eph 4.1-6). God calls each of us into a particular sort of life — the Trinitarian life of humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, unity, and peace. In a word, the Trinitarian […]
Dirty. That’s how I felt the next morning after our son’s baseball game. The night before we played a team obviously above our caliber. It’s obvious to everyone in the league they’re using us as practice squads. They were baseball kids. Our team is kids who play baseball. There’s a huge difference. They practice hours a day. We practice an hour per week. Their starting pitcher might as well have […]
“[Job] was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil”(Job 1.1) . . . “the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (1.21) . . . “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (2.10) Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God (1.22). “I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, and I am […]
“For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mk 12.25). The Sadducees were the 1st-century version of the 21st-century liberals. They denied all things supernatural, especially any notion of bodily resurrection from the dead (cf. Mt 3.7; 16.1, 11-12; 22.23, 34; Lk 20.27; Acts 4.1-2; 5.17; 23.6-8). Sola Torah (Torah alone) was their creed. They didn’t believe anything […]
“We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in marketplace terms: everyone we meet is either a potential recruit to join our enterprise or a potential consumer for what we are selling; […]