The Gospel of John #8

Jesus defies explanation. You can’t just put him in a category and then say you have him figured out. Nearly every conventional idea of Jesus is contr...

The Gospel of John #7

I must confess, I was a little puzzled at the reaction of the Jewish community to the movie The Passion of the Christ. But when I reflected on some of...

The Gospel of John #6

Jesus was a constant puzzle to the Pharisees. Sometimes he is a bit puzzling to us, too. And we have had a lot of time to digest what he was saying. A...

The Gospel of John #5

Considering all that Jesus did, and considering his personal charisma, does it strike you as strange that there was a point when many of his disciples...

The Solitary Man

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Everyone knows this verse by heart. But ther...

The Gospel of John #4

Of the four gospel writers, it is John who is the theologian. More than the others, he captures and reports for us those words and deeds of Jesus that...

The Gospel of John #3

Jesus of Nazareth was full of surprises. His disciples often had trouble figuring him out, but Jesus had an agenda. Everything he did was for a reason...

The Gospel of John #2

From here, it’s hard to imagine what those first encounters with the mature Jesus were like—for those who saw him for the first time. I have no reason...

The Gospel of John #1

The apostle John presents us with the most astonishing theology. And he does it right off the bat, without preamble. To the early theologians of the C...

The Days of Elijah

If you happen to enjoy contemporary praise music, you more than likely have heard These Are The Days of Elijah. (It happens to be one of my favorites....

The Gospel of Matthew #40

Did Jesus die of a broken heart, or was he brutally and violently killed? Now, you have to understand something about us preacher-types. Sometimes we...

The Gospel of Matthew #39

I know that Jesus had to die for my sins. But why did he have to die the way he did? Why the pain, why the shame? Why the spitting, why the humiliatio...

The Gospel of Matthew #38

It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to kill a man. I suppose, in some cases, people kill out of fear. A burglar, for example, might kill someo...

The Gospel of Matthew #37

Everyone wants to know about the end of the world. Just bring up the subject and everyone’s ears perk up. When Jesus’ disciples asked him about the en...

About the Messiah

What did the First Christians believe about Jesus? He was the Messiah, of course, but more than that. Jesus himself laid out the question before the P...

The Gospel of Matthew #36

If the world was going to blow up at noon tomorrow, would you want to know? I don’t just mean having an asteroid hit us, spread some dust and dirt aro...

The Gospel of Matthew #35

If you could ask Jesus, Lord, what are the signs of your second coming and of the end of the world? would you want to know the answer? It’s a teasing...

Unleavened Bread: The Basics

Christian Holidays #1

Are you ready for a quiz? Grab pencil and pad and write down the names of the two most important Christian Holidays. It should only take you a few sec...

Easter or Passover?

There is a fascinating story that links Easter and Passover, and most of the world goes on blissfully unaware of it. Most know that Easter and Passove...

An Appointment with God

Behold the Lamb of God

Why do you suppose God leaves us with so many unanswered questions? And why are some of the truths of the Bible so, well, obscure? If God wants us to...

Passover Service 2001

Who Killed Christ?

When the Pope viewed Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, he is said to have remarked, It is as it was. The Vatican later tried to spin that...

Three Days and Three Nights

I love a good mystery. Puzzle solving is a favorite pastime of mine. So perhaps I can be forgiven for saying in a recent radio program that God also l...

About the New Covenant

What did the First Christians believe about the New Covenant? I’m talking about those Christians who were alive in the days when the New Testament was...

The Gospel of Matthew #34

I know that Jesus was a gentle man. I am certain that he was kind, that he was merciful, and very gentle with the people he dealt with. But, you know,...

The Gospel of Matthew #33

There is a time in a man’s life when he must act—when he must seize the day. There are moments of opportunity; there are simple chances to do things—a...

The Gospel of Matthew #32

What is the Kingdom of Heaven like, really? Listening to preachers when I was growing up, I was under the impression that the Kingdom of Heaven was He...

The Gospel of Matthew #31

What is it about children that makes some people so ready to dismiss them as though they were of no consequence? You know, I have finally become convi...

War and the Christian

Can a Christian take up arms against another person, or another nation? Can a Christian ever be responsible for the death of another human being? Thou...

The Gospel of Matthew #30

When you were on your way home from work yesterday, and you drove by a schoolyard with a couple of hundred kids out there—either playing, or waiting f...

The Gospel of Matthew #29

Is it possible for a sinner to be forgiven and then have that forgiveness taken away? It doesn’t sound right, does it. After all, God says he will rem...

The Gospel of Matthew #28

Jesus told Peter that he was giving him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that whatever he bound on earth would be loosed in heaven, and whatever...

The Gospel of Matthew #27

Would you assume that Jesus wanted everyone to know that he was the Messiah? There was a lot of controversy at the time about who he was. On one occas...

Moses and the Constitution

Christian people have a lot of difficulty with Biblical law and sometimes take shortcuts in trying understand it. One of the most common approaches is...

The Gospel of Matthew #26

Unless you’ve just arrived from another planet and are not yet up to speed, you probably have some notion about what Jesus Christ was like. I would gu...

The Gospel of Matthew #25

Even when Jesus went to the desert to be alone, he could not get away from the crowds. There’s nothing particular unusual about that, I suppose. If yo...

The Gospel of Matthew #24

What is the Kingdom of Heaven like? Is it a great city with jeweled foundations and streets of gold; a marvelous city with gates made from a single pe...

The Gospel of Matthew #23

It’s downright annoying, when something is bothering you, to have one of your friends say, Well, try not to think about it. Right. Have you ever tried...