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…
Mark 1:21-39 Three-fold discipleship
In the last passage we looked at, Jesus had just called his first disciples. Remember, Simon and Andrew, James and John were at the Sea of Galilee, plying their trade as fishermen, and Jesus issues a compelling call: ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once, they drop what they…
Mark 1:14-20 To be a disciple
When Christmas descends on us, as it seems to do so suddenly every year, it presents us with a picture of life. And Christmas now doesn’t look much different than it did at the first Christmas 2000 years ago: Bethlehem was a bustling town, buzzing with commerce. The announcement of a census brought an influx…
Why this blog?
My name is Ken VanderMeulen and I am passionate about the Scriptures as the Word of God, and preaching Jesus accordingly. A few years ago I had a brain tumor and the impact of the treatment meant that I had to resign from my post as pastor. But my passion remains: to get the gospel…
Mark 1: Prologue
Over two thousand years ago, in a land on the Mediterranean Sea, a king was born. His name was Alexander, heir to the throne of his father, Philip of Macedon. Philip had unified the Macedonian people under his rule, and had gone on to conquer the other Greek speaking people in Greece. When he was…
Introduction
But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10:14 ESV). The Bible is like a forest. A forest is a beautiful, living thing, filled with…