Today in our study of Acts we come to the end of chapter 4, and the description of the life of the early church, a description that echoes the description we find at the end of chapter 2. But to see what an incredible description this is, it is necessary to go back in the…
Why suffering?
Possibly the greatest hurdle for people to embrace Christianity is the fact that in the face of the terrible suffering we see in the world, we still preach a God who is both supremely good, and supremely powerful. And these two things seem totally incompatible. If God were all-powerful, he could eliminate the suffering. If…
Why is God silent?
True story: An accountant with a PhD, a man and his wife were immigrants from China some years ago. Invited to church, they became involved with the congregation. Shortly after, though, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. She affirmed faith in Christ and was baptized. A few weeks later, she died. He also confessed Christ…
Psalm 29
One of the great things unique to the human experience is our ability to feel awe, to be overcome with wonder at the size or beauty or power of a thing. We feel a certain awe at some of the things that mankind can produce: a ten-second, 100-meter sprint, or a Tchaikovsky piano concerto, or…
Mark 14:43 – 15:20 Arrest & Trials
Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem. It is the middle of the night. He is in anguish at the prospect of what lies before him (‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death’, he says). In great distress he throws…
Death and Burial of Jesus
Today is Palm Sunday. This is the day when Christians have traditionally celebrated the Triumphal Entry, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, acclaimed by the crowds as a great rabbi, and perhaps the longed for Kingly Messiah. Christians focus on the kingship of Jesus on this day. But today, we are going to…
Mark 14:66-72 Peter’s Denials
Say you have a neighbor. Every day you see him leave for work. You see him come out to the driveway, enter his car, and put it in neutral. Then he gets out of his car and begins to push it onto the road, and then down the road till he’s out of sight. His…
Mark 2:13 – 3:6 The Irreligious Jesus
How is it that someone can grow up in a Christian church and, as soon as they are able, can leave it entirely and live without it? That question hits home for many of us today: · Some of you have watched your children abandon God and church, and you still pray for them…
Mark 2:1-12 The paralytic
In the summer of 1967, a teenaged girl named Joni had her whole life ahead of her. She was attractive, athletic, part of a secure, affluent, and strongly Christian family. She was headed for the Olympics as part of the US show-jumping team. But on a July afternoon that summer, her life changed. Out with…