One of the dominate themes that comes into play in the birth narrative of Jesus is light appearing in the midst of darkness. Often times folks overlook the simple fact that Jesus is born at night. While this may seem to be a rather arbitrary feature...
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and the death of your whole body in the end: Submit with every fiber of your being...
The Christmas season reminds us that the incarnation redefines power. Power has been grossly misrepresented by fallen humanity. Power has become a very human thing. The way in which humanity has mis-represented power through the years has created a...
Yesterday I read this article by Dr. John Oswalt and wanted to share. It’s a bit lengthy, but well worth it. John N. Oswalt is currently Visiting Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He received the B.A...
Don’t underestimate what God can do through you. When we do this, we’re not underestimating ourselves, but God. We must remember that of all the people Jesus could have chose to change the world he chose uneducated fisherman. The...
Jesus said this often. The question is why? What did Jesus mean when he said this? After all, Jesus was a great teacher. At the same time, there were some pretty enigmatic things that Jesus said. After all, aren’t we still arguing quite a bit...
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is not about the Christian notion of dying and going to heaven. Ben WItherington makes this point in his (great and highly recommended) little book, Revelation and the End Times Participant’s Guide Unraveling God’s...
One of my best and most trusted friends, who I will call Chase, emailed me this morning with an excellent question. Chase wrote this, “Can you explain this statement to me, ‘Faith does not come by intellectual ascension but by the Word and...
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believers, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. —Romans 1:16, emphasis added. Often times we overlook the fact that 99% of Jesus’ recorded words in the...
Here is a link to a sermon I preached at Farmland Friends Church in Farmland, IN this summer. The title of the message is “Jesus Is The Gospel”. The sermon begins right around 24 minutes into the video.
Shabbat Shalom to all.
Matt