The principle of resting one day in seven to worship God is a permanent moral law (the Fourth Commandment, rooted in Creation). However, the specific requirement to observe it on the seventh day of the week (Saturday) was a ceremonial aspect tied to the Old Covenant. With the resurrection of Christ, the ceremonial shadow of the seventh day expired, but the... Continue Reading

You cannot follow Jesus halfway. You cannot hold onto control and still call it obedience. You cannot keep negotiating with what God has already made clear.   “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Acts 7:51) Stephen stands in front of the... Continue Reading

Read as a whole, Jonah is not chiefly a story about the fish. It is a story about the Lord dealing with a servant who does not want God’s mercy to go where God has chosen to send it. From the opening command to the final question outside Nineveh, the same issue remains. Jonah wants... Continue Reading

Left to ourselves, the pattern holds. It always has. But Easter declares that we are not left to ourselves. Past behavior may predict future performance. It often does. But it is no longer the final authority. Because the One who stepped into history, took our past upon Himself, and walked out of the grave now... Continue Reading

Maybe people were so overcome by grief that they had a mass hallucination—something that defies the extremely private nature of hallucinations. Or maybe Jesus wasn’t really dead, but only very badly injured. Despite all of these alternatives stretching credulity to its breaking point, they still circulate today. But what if the best explanation is the... Continue Reading

When Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, his first thesis focused on repentance: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” Scripture is clear that repentance should be ongoing for the believer.     1.... Continue Reading

The ultimate hope for Christians is in the finished work and future return of Jesus Christ.  Death is, in the eyes of most, the worst thing that can happen to humans—it is the cessation of life itself. But, because of Christ, death is not the destination for the Christian. Death is but a brief layover... Continue Reading

For the same amount of time that the woman’s life was beset by an embarrassing and physically depleting illness that kept her from corporate worship, Jairus and his wife would have enjoyed life with their daughter. It’s also possible that their daughter had been ill most of her life, and she is finally succumbing to... Continue Reading

What are our top three priorities, is the question she says we should ask ourselves, and then shares a story about herself that I think we can identify with.     In Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing, Laura Mae Martin cites the 2018 study at Ohio University that says, people remember... Continue Reading

The ground we have of comfort under rebuke and disgrace . . . is a spirit of glory. What is that? A large spirit enlarging our hearts with inward comfort, inward joy, inward love of God. . . .     In Colossians 3:3, the Apostle Paul wrote these words: “For you have died, and... Continue Reading