3–9 February 2019. Matthew 23 (click to read). We all know about Jesus’s incredible love, his graciousness, mercy, and gentleness. But in today’s reading we see a very different side of Jesus. We see him truly furious. Matthew 23 is unique in all the gospels, because it’s in this chapter that we hear Jesus’s harshest, […]
20–26 January 2019. Matthew 13:36–58 (click to read). At the very end of John’s gospel, the disciples sit by the sea with the resurrected Jesus and eat breakfast together. During that meal, Peter quietly approaches Jesus and tries to ask questions about one of the other disciples (21:20–23). But Jesus immediately stops Peter and, in […]
6–12 January 2019. Matthew 5:1–20 (click to read). Ever since the ancient days of the Old Testament, followers of God have known that they cannot simply open up scripture and immediately understand the will of God. Scripture needs to be interpreted, and wise teachers are needed for that. In Nehemiah 8:8 we see how Ezra […]
30 December 2018 – 5 January 2019. Hebrews 12:1–13 (click to read). When we look back over the past year we see that there have been good times but also difficult times – times of stress, sadness, and even suffering. Hebrews 12 talks about the way suffering can be used by God the Father to discipline […]
2–8 December 2018. Psalm 87 (click to read). Psalm 87 is one of the so-called “Songs of Zion”, hymns that praise Zion (another name for Jerusalem) for its role in God’s work of ruling and blessing the world. Jewish scholars tell us that Psalm 87 may have been sung by pilgrims on their yearly journey […]
4–10 November 2018. 1 John 2 (click to read). Many years ago I was invited to participate in a church meeting. The thing I remember most from that day was one church elder who stood up and shouted at others, angrily waving his arms around, pointing his finger at others, and aggressively attacking and criticizing […]
9–15 September 2018. Jeremiah 35–36 (click to read). Our lives are full of people who want us to listen to them. Teachers and bosses tell us what to do, advertisements tell us what to buy, and even our friends try to influence us to do what they want. Wherever we turn, people are trying to […]
29 July – 4 August 2018. John 18:28–40 (click to read). In the middle of the story of Jesus’s trial and execution, John gives us an unusual but very important detail about Jesus’s Jewish accusers. In v. 28 John tells us that these accusers dragged Jesus to the headquarters of the Roman governor but they […]
22–28 July 2018. John 14:15–31 (click to read). In John 14 we find Jesus in the middle of his last speech to his disciples. Jesus knows that he doesn’t have much time left before he is arrested and executed. So here at the end, Jesus gives his disciples his final teachings, and also some hope […]
15–21 July 2018. John 11:38–57 (click to read). When we are suffering it’s easy to think that God is very far away from us, living far away in heaven and not really interested in all the troubles we are going through every day. But that’s really not true at all. God does care about us, […]