“One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. “Woe to you …
Christ the Un-Christ-like
“Instead of seeking to learn our paradigms of behavior from the Scriptures, we tend to bring our assumptions, learned elsewhere and from others, and view the Scriptures through those assumptions. This is not a superficial problem; it goes down to the bone. The prophets, the apostles and our Lord Jesus all exhibit a vast array …
Our Foundation Stone
Our Father and holy God, we rejoice that You have given us so much to be grateful for, and we thank You in the name of Jesus Christ. This Sabbath day is our foundation stone, upon which we build the rest of the week. We look forward in faith to the week You have given …
Can’t Argue With That
A certain man once claimed that he had a special kind of fish net, one that could capture any kind of fish in the lake. A friend asked to see the net, and was astonished when the proud fisherman brought out a net with a mesh that had openings that were two inches square. “Don’t …
What Do We Imitate?
“And this is because certain non-Christian assumptions have come to dominate how we read the Bible. When Jesus looked on the rich, young ruler and loved him, it is very easy for us to say that we should be loving as He was. When preachers make such applications, no one thinks anything of it. But …
Kindness and Truth Together
One of the ways that we avoid biblical balance in speaking is by assuming some kind of distance between truth and kindness. But Scripture says, “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart” (Prov. 3:3). Merciful kindness and truth go together. They are …
And I Will Fill It
As we seek to be brought to maturity through this Table, by the Lord who presides over this Table, we must take care to head His teaching. The Word always accompanies the sacrament, and as we sit at this table, we do not sit in silence. The Lord from His position at the head of …
Part of the Temple Wall
God is at work in our midst, and when God works in a fallen world, He does two things. The first is a work of tearing down, of shaking, of demolishing that which rests upon the wisdom and knowledge of carnal man. He throws down the work of the fleshly man, He throws down the …
The People Had a Mind to Work
In the latter part of the Old Testament, some of the characters and dates start to run together for us, and it is sometimes hard to keep the details straight. If you couple this with the general ignorance about secular history of this time, the result—even for Bible readers—is a random collection of historical facts …
One Kind of Satire
“The Juvenalian approach can be harsh or buoyant. When Jesus describes His adversaries as vipers, the tone is a straightforward denunciation. But if someone were to describe a bureaucrat as one asleep at his desk so long that one side of his head was flat, this would be Juvenalian also — the point being most …