[follower] “What’s on the agenda for today?” [leader] “Today we dine with uptight self-righteous people.” [follower] “That’s gonna be awkward.” [leader] “Yup.” Later that day, during dinner… [uptight self-righteous people] “Why do you flagrantly break God’s rules?” [leader] “I don’t.” Awkward silence… [leader] “I got a story for y’all. Once upon a time there was […]
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Luke 24:27 Where is the Angel of the Lord in Scripture? Gen. 16 – Gives a promise to Hagar in the wilderness. Gen. 22 – Reaffirms the messianic promise with Abraham. Gen. 31 – Appears […]
The book of Judges reads like a series of bizarre dreams. The array of unusual stories is unparalleled. It is a saga of completely off-the-wall, utterly unexpected and shocking events. And the deeper you go into the narrative the more you realize that this dream is actually a nightmare. You come to find that the […]
Imagine you are Ethan the Ezrahite (author of the final poem in Book III of the Psalms). …Ethan – that famous sage in the entourage of wise men – along with Heman, Calcol, and Darda – in the days of King David and King Solomon. This Ezrahite saw firsthand the glory of the Davidic empire! […]
Question: did Jesus strive to keep a low profile? Answer: yes (Mark 9:30). Question: why is Jesus always trying to keep a low profile? Answer: because Jesus is determined to be crucified, and he knows that once he explicitly tells the crowds what he’s about, they will murder him (see John 6:60-61); and Jesus isn’t […]
Remember that episode of The Office when Michael dates Pam’s mom? Remember how it drives Pam bonkers? Remember how the tension builds and eventually boils over in the break room when Pam yells at Michael, “Stop dating my mother!” And Michael says, “You know what? I’m gonna start dating her even harder.” Here’s the clip. […]
Let’s think about the motion picture Nacho Libre. The film is loosely based on the story of Fray Tormenta (“Friar Storm”, a.k.a. Rev. Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez), a real-life Mexican Catholic priest who had a 23-year career as a masked luchador and competed in order to support the orphanage he directed. There are a few things […]
We had been through some tough stuff leading up to the Keilah incident. In fact, we’d been navigating formidable stuff our whole lives. We were the like people who came from Nazareth! We were the public school kids! We were a society of distressed, indebted, bitter souls. There were approx. 600 of us. And at […]
Here’s what Paul said to the church community in Corinth, “I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith. For I made […]
I briskly traversed through the Gospel of Mark this morning. I normally progress ploddingly through the Γέγραπται, but sometimes it’s helpful to conduct a sprightly trot through a gospel in order to obtain a better sense of the surplus and sundry instances of Jesus offending people. It is absolutely vital that we come to grips […]