It’s fascinating that the longest discourse of Jesus in the entire New Testament is also the most private, the most intimate, the most personal. It is the night of the Last Supper and he’s going …
The Gospel of John #10
Have you ever wondered why it is that Christian people feel they are never alone? It’s true, you know—we are never completely alone. In the night of the last supper, Jesus told his disciples: If …
The Gospel of John #9
One of the saddest things about the ministry of Jesus is the number of people who believed him, believed his message, believed what he said about who he was, believed on him, but could not …
Faith in a Box
I think I am at long last beginning to understand something that puzzles a lot of people. How was it possible to hate a man who could make the blind see, the lame walk, the …
The Gospel of John #8
Jesus defies explanation. You can’t just put him in a category and then say you have him figured out. Nearly every conventional idea of Jesus is contradicted by the basic source documents—the four gospels of …
The Gospel of John #7
I must confess, I was a little puzzled at the reaction of the Jewish community to the movie The Passion of the Christ. But when I reflected on some of the persecution of Jews by …
The Gospel of John #6
Jesus was a constant puzzle to the Pharisees. Sometimes he is a bit puzzling to us, too. And we have had a lot of time to digest what he was saying. And, let’s face it, …
The Gospel of John #5
Considering all that Jesus did, and considering his personal charisma, does it strike you as strange that there was a point when many of his disciples turned away and didn’t follow him any longer? What …
Thy Will Be Done
The disciples of Jesus came to him one day with a request: Lord, teach us to pray. Jesus replied with a remarkably concise, model prayer. We call it the Lord’s Prayer and everyone knows it …
The Gospel of John #4
Of the four gospel writers, it is John who is the theologian. More than the others, he captures and reports for us those words and deeds of Jesus that tell us who he is and …
The Gospel of John #3
Jesus of Nazareth was full of surprises. His disciples often had trouble figuring him out, but Jesus had an agenda. Everything he did was for a reason. Take an incident early on in Samaria. Jesus …
The Gospel of John #2
From here, it’s hard to imagine what those first encounters with the mature Jesus were like—for those who saw him for the first time. I have no reason to imagine that Jesus was in any …
The Gospel of John #1
The apostle John presents us with the most astonishing theology. And he does it right off the bat, without preamble. To the early theologians of the Christian church, he also posed a dilemma. The church …
American Prophets
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate …
Life and Light
There was a time when I thought the anti-abortion people were just a little too cute in calling themselves “pro-life”. I don’t think that any longer. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was precisely …
Everything Is Beautiful
I used to wonder at the decay of popular music in all of its forms. Why wasn’t anyone writing beautiful music? It seemed almost as though they had lost the ability. And then I read …
Expectations of Marriage
When on vacation, celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary, my wife and I happened to notice a magazine article entitled, Marriages that Last (Is Yours One?). That was irresistible under the circumstances. Our marriage seemed to …
Covenant Marriage
For the first time in our history, married couples are in a minority. Married couples now only comprise 48% of the households of this country. Back when I was a junior in high school, going …
The Starting Point
Nancy Pearcey in her book, Total Truth, brought something into focus that I had thought about but hadn’t quite got together. She observed that a common weakness of evangelism is that we start with redemption. …
The Power to Love
A man can live without food…for a while. He can live on short rations for quite a while. But sooner or later the body withers and dies. We know what it looks like, because we …