Brownwood Church

The Roman Empire was the abomination that brought desolation to Jerusalem and its temple. When the legions surrounded the cities, they did so as vultures carrying the Aquila on their poles. The Jews would have thought to run into the city of Jerusalem to get behind its walls for protection as Romans approached, but Jesus told His disciples to flee to the mountains because Jerusalem was the target,...

Jesus' Olivet Discourse begins in response to the disciples' questions about the timing of the destruction of the temple and the sign of His coming and the end of the age. Though the disciples presumed them to be one and the same, Jesus' prophetic response demonstrates that God's coming judgment upon Jerusalem in their generation at the end of the Judaic aeon is a foreshadow of His coming judgment...

Being equipped is being prepared for the work to which God has called us. He equips us by His Spirit for the work of ministry and by His Word for every good work. God has given unique gifts to His church for the equipping of the saints because all of us as believers have a stewardship of His grace in our calling as ministers. These equipping gifts correspond to every aspect of the great commission...

Christ's first and second appearings are inextricably connected realities. If the first is certain, the second is also. Christ's appearings undergird Paul's charges for Timothy to take hold of the eternal life to which he was called, and all that means. If we have loved Christ's first appearing, we will love His second. If we have believed in the purpose of His first Advent, we must believe in the...

The event that divides history, humanity, and eternity is the appearing of our Savior. It is the eternal marrow and historical lifeblood of what we celebrate this season. In Christ's first Advent, He brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. He saved us and abolished death, reminding us that Christmas is more than a cyclical, season tradition, but God's eternal purpose manifested i...

Jesus loved Jerusalem, but His last words in the temple were a lament of condemnation upon unrestrained Pharisaical hypocrisy. The religious leaders had misled God’s people long enough, and it was time for the old to give way as Jesus leaves their house to them desolate and journeys on to make all things new.

Jesus' last words in the temple begin with a warning about the Pharisees' cravings for honor. They wanted to be sat, greeted, and titled with distinction, especially in public for obvious reason. Jesus shakes the foundation of their entire Rabbinical system when He commands those in His hearing to no longer call one sinful man "teacher," "father," or "leader." Instead, as Jesus reminds them, they...

The Pharisees knew the Messiah would come from David's line and thus be his son. But they didn't know how He would also be his Lord, as Jesus challenges them with from Psalm 110. Like today, the Jews of Jesus' day were expecting an anointed man to come from David's line to be their Messiah. But they had no expectations for that man to be the divine Lord Himself.

When Jesus is tested by a scholar of the law regarding the greatest commandment, He responds with the commandment from which all others are derived and summarized: to love Yahweh with all you are, reiterated in multiple anthropological categories, each composing the whole of a man, combined in the Shema to leave no doubt to the totality of the command. The second greatest command, which is like it...

The Sadducees approach Jesus with a question about the resurrection, which they denied because of their rejection of the Prophets and the Writings of the Old Testament. Using the command of Levirate marriage from the Law, they attempt to trap Jesus with a scenario of a woman being married to seven brothers in succession. Their mistake is exposed when Jesus demonstrates from their own Scriptures th...

The Pharisees plot to trap Jesus in His words by asking if it is lawful to pay the tribute tax to Caesar with the denarius bearing his image and inscription of divinity. If Jesus says yes and sides with the Herodians, the majority of Jews could turn on Him. If He says no and undermines the coin, He may be guaranteeing His death at the hands of the Romans. In one brilliant statement, Jesus will bot...

Jesus' third and final response to the temple leaders' challenge of His authority comes in the form of the Parable of the Wedding Feast. In it, the king prepares marriage ceremonies for his son, but the people were unwilling to come because they had other matters of their lives to attend. After multiple rejected invitations, he sends out his servants to invite anyone and everyone willing to come....

Jesus' second parable to the temple authorities is that of a vineyard prepared by its landowner in every way to bear fruit before going away. The tenants he left in charge represent Israel and its leaders, who killed the servants God sent (the prophets) when they came to call for the fruit, knowing they had none to show. After sending more servants with the same result, the landowner decides to se...

Jesus' parable of the two sons is the story of sinners (the first son) who initially reject their father's command, but later regret their decision and actually desire to go work in His vineyard. As Jesus tells it, the religious authorities indict themselves as the second son, who initially said he would go work in the vineyard, but never did because he never had the true desire. If there were eve...

What is the source of true authority? Jesus, a Rabbi without one of his own, who never studied in the Rabbinic Schools of the day, is questioned in the temple. He rabbinically makes them answer their own question by asking them the source of John's baptism, the man who most clearly affirmed the authority of the One for which he prepared the way. What a picture to see Jesus, who has no authority in...

Like the fig tree in leaf that Jesus walks up to on His way into Jerusalem, Israel had all the external signs of life, yet no fruit. So He declares that it will never bear fruit again in a pronouncement of judgment. He then tells His disciples that if they had faith and did not doubt, not only would they do the same in declaring fruitless external religion dead, but they would also say to this mou...

As Jesus enters Jerusalem for His last Passover, the Lord suddenly comes in to His temple. Zeal for His Father's house has consumed Him once again as He cleanses the temple that wasn't cleansed 3 years ago when His ministry began. Never do we see our Lord more animated in righteous anger in His incarnated life than when worship was compromised. God's holy temple had become man's common marketplace...

As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, His entry will be crucial. As the rightful King, He could have ridden in on a horse in a declaration of war. Instead, Jesus will ride in on the foal of a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy to cut off the bow of war. Our King established His kingdom as one where humility triumphs over pride, self-sacrifice triumphs over violence, and peace ultimately triump...

As large crowds following Jesus converge at Jericho on the way to the Passover, two blind beggars cry out for mercy. Though they don't know it, this will be their last chance for Jesus to hear them, and heal them. But as we see, their physical blindness is not a spiritual disability; quite the opposite, as they still recognize the true Son of David. Jesus' healing of their physical blindness becom...

After Jesus gives the third and clearest prediction of His death, He begins to ascend the mountain of the Lord for the final time. As He does, James and John's mother requests her sons sit at His right and left in His kingdom. She understood Christ as King, but she completely misunderstood the nature of His kingdom. Jesus would show her the paradoxical nature of the Kingdom; the one where the King...

Jesus' parable of the landowner and the day-laborers illustrates that grace is the currency of heaven and the economy of the kingdom. Those who were chosen and called from the marketplace at the very end of the day received the same wages as the ones who had been working since the early morning. This helps us understand that the groups of Gentiles who were brought in to the kingdom later may recei...

When a rich, young ruler asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus doesn't tell him to pray a prayer or make a decision, but to sell his possessions and follow Him. Although it has the common elements of repentance, faith, and following Him, Jesus' message of eternal life is specific in seemingly each and every case, whether it be to the Samaritan woman at the well, Nicodemus, Zaccheus,...

Our children are the earthly picture of what we must spiritually become to enter the kingdom. When parents begin bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed, the disciples try and turn them away. But like He so often does, Jesus welcomes them to come because their humility was the essence of entrance into the kingdom. Not only were children welcome to come, they were the picture of how we must...

As the Pharisees try to trap Jesus on the issue of marriage by making him side with one of the rabbinical schools of thought of the day, He confounds all in His hearing with the fulfillment of the law: "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Even though these religious leaders could only recall the case law that was given because of the hardness of their hearts, Jesus points...

Contentment eludes most because it seems to lie in an ever-escaping dream that may never be a reality. But Paul learned the secret of being content in whatever circumstance he found himself. Being content in his present situation taught him how to be content in any and every situation, so that he could truly do all things through Christ who strengthened him.