When the Lord is pleased to reveal His wisdom to us, we must take very great care not to add our own improvements. “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35-45). In the book of Mark, Jesus is …
Authority to Apportion
“The steward has no say in determining what goes into the larder; it is stocked for him by the householder. But it is his responsibility to decide what comes out of it, and when, and in what measure. This is another aspect of the steward’s faithfulness, this time not to the householder or the goods, …
The Holy One of God
We begin here with Christ’s teaching ministry. This leads directly to a public exorcism in the synagogue, followed by a private healing at Simon and Andrew’s house, and then, when the word got around, many healings and exorcisms at the front door of that house. “And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath …
The Lord With Us
INTRODUCTION: There are seven Old Testament passages quoted in the first chapter of Hebrews alone. And five of those seven passages have to do with the submission of the nations to Christ. And that is what the entire book is about—and we are taught this through the author showing us that this is what the …
No Problem Texts
“One way to escape extremes of neglect and overemphasis is to work steadily through books of the Bible or at least whole chapters, expounding everything, shirking nothing” (John Stott, A Preacher’s Portrait, p. 26).
Garden and Wilderness
We always want our faith to revolve around the center of what God has revealed, which is of course the gospel. But it is not enough to have the word gospel in our conversation. We must see that our definition of the word matches the teaching and instruction of Christ. “And immediately the Spirit driveth …
From God’s Supply
“The stewardship metaphor indicated the content of the preacher’s message. Indeed, if the metaphor teaches anything, it teaches that the preacher does not supply his own message; he is supplied with it. If the steward is not expected to feed the household out of his own pocket, the preacher is not to provide his own …
A Baptism That Cleansed the Water
We will certainly stumble in reading this Gospel if we attempt to understand it as a stand-alone biography. The wonderful story told here cannot be comprehended apart from the backdrop of the entire narrative of God’s purposes for Israel given in the Old Testament. This section shows us the richness of scriptural allusion found in …
Stewardship As Motivation
“The first truth concerns the source of the preacher’s incentive. Preaching is hard work. The preacher is often tempted to become dispirited. He needs powerful incentives to strengthen his flagging soul, and there is no doubt that he can find one here. St. Paul certainly did. He was a steward of God’s mysteries, ‘a trustee …
Idolatry of the Grand Scale
One of the great political temptations that moderns face is the temptation of the “grand scale.” When the state aspires to deity, the state needs to generate the requisite awe in those who participate in the process. One of the ways of doing this is to proclaim that the future of the planet is at …