Most of the time, if you invite someone over, it’s because you want to cultivate the relationship. The Pharisees were clearly a mixed group and not all of the same…
Luke tells us that “the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John” (7:30). So, it is possible…
We have the teaching. We have the promise. Henceforth, we have ministry. In the early seventies, a German theologian of some note wrote a book: The Church in the Power…
Nearly seventy years ago, William Barclay wrote: “[i]t is a grim commentary on human nature that many a book and many a play and many a film has had success…
When Jesus sets out on his earthly ministry, his first recorded words are not “God loves you” or “Love one another,” supremely lovely as those teachings are. About the first…
No one gets to Jesus in just the same way. Am I going to tell Jesus, “Lord, that’s not how I’d do it”? If people bring someone to Jesus in…
Mark’s version, church tradition tells us, is based upon Peter’s recollection. Mark was secretary and personal assistant to Peter in his last years. Mark’s—Peter’s—account begins, not with a genealogy, nor…
“It will always help us if we regard this world as organized not for our comfort but for our training.”[1] So says our friend William Barclay. The old saying was…
Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see, little ears, what you hear. Oh, be careful, little tongue, what you say, little hands, what you do. Oh, be careful, little…
Mercy forgives. Forgiveness does not undo the consequences of our sin; this is why you and I must struggle, continually, against those impulses to sin that come and knock, like…