Taking a test

I was not a particularly good test taker in school. I didn’t care for them (I’d say I hated them, but we’ve taught our children not to use the word hate in that kind of context, so I refrain). I would much rather write a paper — or several papers — than take one test. […]

He does all things well

It’s just one tiny sentence at the end of a story, but it’s the key to understanding the story. After Jesus healed the Syrophoenician’s daughter of the demon and healed the deaf man by touching him with His saliva (Mark 7), along with other unnamed miracles, the crowd declared, “He has done all things well…” […]

When obedience is not obedience

Not all obedience is obedience. If you have children, that statement is often easy to validate. Children will begrudgingly say, “sorry” when they’ve sinned, with little evident demonstrations of remorse or repentance. Children will fulfill a task (e.g., cleaning, chores, homework), all the while grumbling about it, so the job is done, but with all […]

Self-examination questions

Self-examination is always good in the life of the believer. In Psalm 26, David articulates a number of areas of his life that reflect his integrity before the Lord. These assertions are a good place for the believer to ask questions about his own life with God and Christ: Is the overall character of my […]

Do not be afraid

Just because something is easy to say does not mean it is easy to do. So it is easy for Jesus to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” It’s far more difficult to actually absolve one of the guilt before God that is incurred by sin, which was exactly Jesus’s point and claim in Mk. 2:5-12. […]

Denying self and following Christ

Jesus: And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For […]

Amazed by unbelief

It is not for lack of evidence that belief that people don’t believe in Christ. They do not believe in spite of the evidence that they are given. As one writer has noted, “What a man does not want to believe, he can find a way to deny.” Unbelief has always been a common response […]

A full basket of provision

Ministry can be relentlessly busy. There are days when you just want to stop. You don’t want to leave Christ or quit your ministry; you just want a break from the pace. The disciples certainly knew that desire. You can almost read it between the lines of their complaints in Matthew 14. The opposition to […]

Jesus and the demoniac

Jesus demonstrated His supreme power over nature in the stilling of the storm (Mk. 4:35-41), and immediately after crossing the lake to the other side, he is confronted by a powerful demoniac (Mk. 5:1ff). We know he is powerful because the man has lost complete control over his senses, as evidenced by his lack of […]

A psalm of the cross

Psalm 22 is familiar to many readers not so much for the psalm itself, but for how Christ and the New Testament writers used this psalm. Spurgeon calls it “The Psalm of the Cross,” writing, “It is the photograph of our Lord’s saddest hours, the record of his dying words, the lachrymatory of his last […]

Understanding Christ’s Parables

In Mark 4 (the parallel passage of Mt. 13 and Luke 8) Jesus begins teaching in parables, starting with perhaps the most well-known parable, the parable of the soils. Yet as He taught, the disciples were confused (v. 10; cf. also Mt. 13:10; Lk. 8:9) — why was He changing His method of teaching, and […]

A brief lesson about demons

In Luke 8, Jesus confronts the demoniac known as Legion. And in a spectacular demonstration of His power, and with something of a sense of irony, Jesus sends the demons into a herd of pigs, who then rush over a cliff to a watery grave. Yet in this story, some basic realities about demons are […]

Listen up!

Two weeks after she was born, we discovered our daughter had a hearing loss. Within three months, she was wearing two hearing aids. And since that time, we have always been grateful for every word she has heard and every sound she has been able to make (she’s now in high school and has played […]

The compassion of Christ

A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead the indications of civilization in a culture. He thought that she might reply with something like a clay pot or a fish hook or a grinding stone. Instead, he was surprised by her answer, “a healed femur.” Mead explained to the young student that no healed femurs are […]

Hope for the weary

A few years ago a motorcycle police officer noticed a vehicle that appeared to be dragging something behind it. As he drew closer and then began to pass the car, he saw that the something was a basset hound at the end of a leash that was caught in the car door. He said of […]