Articles

I want you to consider a principle: faith makes you a canvas upon which the Redeemer can paint the beauty of his grace. What do you think this principle means? And how does it apply to the situtations, locations, and relationships of your everyday life? Take a moment to meditate on these questions, and when you're ready, grab a Bible and read John 3:1-21. The Background In most of the gospel narratives, the Pharisees are identified as a group of people, but in John 3,... Read More

It's a story so unusual, so extraordinary, and so mind-blowing that when we step back and consider the narrative, it forces us to reconsider the typical ways we think and talk about our lives. It's a story that you're probably familiar with, but before we dive into that passage from Scripture, I want you to examine yourself: what is your street-level theology of God's involvement in your mundane affairs? What do you tend to tell yourself when an unexpected or unplanned... Read More

Anyone who has been exposed to the Christian tradition will know the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. But just to refresh your memory, I would like you to re-read John 6:1-15 before starting this piece. SETTING THE SCENE The fame of Jesus was spreading like wildfire, and understandably so. No one had performed wondrous miracles like this man (v. 2), and no one had spoken with authority like this teacher (Mark 1:22). People everywhere wanted to be in the presence of Jesus,... Read More

Imagine what it was like for her, just her and her little boy. Her husband had died, and together, mother and son were starving to death. They were victims of a widespread famine, and there was no place to go and nothing to do about their plight. She had faced the reality of their coming demise. She would take her little pot of flour and the little bit of oil she had left, gather some sticks, make a little cake, eat this final meal with her son and lay down to die. What would you be... Read More

It was a crazy request: build a boat. But there's no water around. Build it anyway, and trust that water will come. Fill it with all the animals of the land, then board it with your family. Oh, and just a disclaimer – this is going to take decades and result in persecution and mockery. Such was the nature of the task assigned to Noah. It was crazy, when you think about it in its historical and geographical context. There was no amount of human logic, rationality or wisdom that... Read More

We don't know much about the man Enoch. The Bible doesn't divulge any details of his life, amazing feats, battles won, or journies taken by faith like it does with other biblical characters. All we know is that he was the seventh generation between Adam and Noah, that his father was Jared, and that his son was the famous long-living Methuselah (see Genesis 5:18-24). Despite his unremarkable life (in terms of historical prominence and biblical detail), Enoch is the second character... Read More

Want more on the story of Cain and Abel? Check out this sermon I preached on Genesis 4 He's the first martyr in Scripture, and his death is recorded only four chapters in. Perhaps a more gruesomely accurate description is that Abel becomes the first victim of sibling homicide in the history of the world. It's the kind of story that starts trending on social media, capturing your interest as it turns your stomach at the very same time. I almost titled this story... Read More

I want to introduce to you a series of posts that will focus on stories of people of faith. You will be familiar with some of the names, like Noah and Abel and Enoch, while other biblical characters will be less renowned, like the Widow of Zarephath, who still have important stories to tell. But before we begin, I need to remind you of something important: the purpose of their stories is not to give you heroes to emulate, but rather to point you to a Person in whom your faith should reside.... Read More

A few days ago I said that you and I are at risk of becoming too familiar with the Bible and the stories in it. I think there's another area where you and I are at risk in our Christian faith: We read the Bible too quickly. We need to slow down and pay attention to every single word, because there are words and phrases that tell huge stories. If we breeze by them, we could miss something powerful that the Lord is trying to teach us. In today's video clip, there are two words... Read More

I don't know about you, but sometimes I like to read the Bible with self-righteous glasses and look down on the men and women who make faithless blunders and selfish decisions. But I can't get very far before God convicts me of my own sin and reminds me that I'm more like these people than unlike them. Jonah is one of those characters. I like to think that I would never run from the call of God, but in ways that we don't even realize, you and I run everyday. Why do we... Read More