On walking the Way

In previous weeks we have been discussing bible interpretation and inductive study. This week I thought it might be useful to give a brief example of how the steps we discussed last week can be used in daily bible study. Last week I briefly summarized the main steps in studying the bible inductively. * Discover the background of the book * Observe what the text is actually saying * Interpret the t...

When I was young I was blessed to know a man named Obed Edom Balken. I used to jump at the chance to ask him questions after church. He was kind and wise and had a twinkle in his eye that made me smile. He was one of those people that made you feel more alive every time you talked to him. One day in response to one of these questions, (and I don’t even remember the question), he looked at me with...

We talked last week about the importance of developing your own personal liturgy, a structured time each day set aside for God. And we spoke about the importance of a daily bible reading program of some type to help in the development of this new healthy habit. The point of this newsletter from the beginning was to stay focused on topics that help us walk every day in the Way of Jesus. As a bible...

According to Webster a liturgy can be described as: a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances. Often this word is used to describe the order of worship on a Sunday morning. But Sunday is only one day of the week, what do we do on the other days? Over time, our actions describe our beliefs better than our words. This is a thought I had some years ago as I was preparing a lecture for...

Paul very famously stated, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”. So how do we begin to harmonize this saying of Paul with the statements of James we are looking at today? James 2:14-17 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, an...

I grew up thinking that Pharisees were holier than thou religious types, the worst of the worst. They were horrible people pretending to be super righteous people. Was I wrong? Well, no they were and are that, but it was a naive and incomplete understanding of how universal the problem of self-righteousness really is. The world we live in at this moment is really not a very religious place. Yet, i...

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “ Are you for us, or for our adversaries? ” And he said, “ No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come .” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord s...

In our world mercy seems to be in desperately short supply. Everyone seems very confident that they are right and that those that disagree are either ignorant or evil and probably both. This week we are going back into the letter of James and we are going to look at a single idea, it is an idea we see Jesus speak to on more than one occasion. It is this idea of mercy and judgement. Last time we we...

I like the picture for today, because it says so much without saying a word. In it we can see and almost feel what the process of training is like for these football players. Training is never a passive pursuit. No one accidentally gets trained. Training requires both a trainer and a trainee and they both need to be actively involved or training never happens. Today we are going to take look at so...

I once knew a woman who, for over 20 years, was married to a raging grizzly bear of a man. No one would have condemned her for leaving him, but she was a godly woman and trusted her future to God. One day this grizzly bear met God and radically changed, the grizzly bear became a teddy bear. Still a bear, but a bear of a very different kind. The transformation was shocking to all who knew him, but...

In George Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm” he writes, "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS". This little line has become something of a sarcastic proverb since then. But the problem is real and it’s certainly not new. Current culture and politics have clamped onto the concept of equality to the point that a calm conversation about it is almost impossible in the unbelievin...

There are many “benedictions” or statements of blessing in the bible. Romans 15:13 is one of my top three biblical benedictions. Not only is it a blessing but it is a very intentional blessing to all those who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. This is a New Covenant blessing for all who can hear and believe. Today’s passage is found in the conclusion of Paul’s argument for the inclusion of the Genti...

When I was young there were several years where I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. He needed a fishing buddy to do all the running around a climbing over things that he couldn’t do and I was just the right age at that time. I loved going fishing with him, he was funny and came from a world I didn’t fully understand. He told great stories and always bought me snacks. It was awesome. One day...

When we sin, do we ever imagine that Jesus is standing next to us? I doubt it, I know I don’t, and that’s a big problem. Years ago there was a Christian fad of wearing bracelets with the letters WWJD on them, or “What Would Jesus Do”. As fads go, this was actually a very good question. But, it only works if you believe that Jesus is real, alive, and present. Without that living awareness of the pr...

To be human is to face temptations of all kinds. Jesus was tempted in all ways as well, yet he did not sin. To often though we tend to think of temptation as some kind of external, even demonic or satanic force that is attacking us. But the truth is even more disturbing than an external demonic attack. Today we are going to look at the source of temptation and sin, and it is not pretty. James 1:12...

Last week we began our walk through James with a discussion on trials, temptations, and suffering. We learned that rather than curse these things, we need to embrace them with a type of joy, understanding that through these undesirable circumstances we build steadfast faith which is eternally valuable. This week James will look at the topic of wisdom. Wisdom is a topic that James discusses frequen...

Who is James and who is he writing? As with all of the books of the Bible the letter of James has had its share of scholarly opinion. Shockingly not all scholars agree. I’m kidding about the shocking part scholars never completely agree on anything it seems. But as I have studied and taught over the years I have come to love what is called “Occam’s Razor”. Occam’s Razor shaves away all overly comp...

Why do we do what we do? That question is much, much harder than it sounds. In our passage for today Jesus does a bit of very unflattering analysis on this question. He shows us why we are so easily led astray. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not s...

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you wil...

Passion week is sometimes an overwhelming mix of emotions for me. On the one hand you have the the faithfulness and love of Christ who walks through unthinkable pain and suffering towards the joy of his resurrection which renders death itself powerless. On the other you have a complex and gut wrenching week of human failure on display. We see the corruption of human leadership and institutions as...

I think anyone that has been a Christian for any length of time has prayed to God and asked for some kind of supernatural infusion of love. We have all prayed to feel some love for someone who needs it while doing everything in their power to be unlovable. Jesus talked of loving our enemies, and he wasn’t talking about people we disagree with on Twitter, he was talking about real enemies that have...

The story we are looking at today is one that is often taught as the three temptations of Jesus. And there are three specific temptations discussed in this story and as we all know Jesus resisted each of these temptations. Today though, I would like to look at the subject of temptation more broadly and look a bit more at the whole 40 day experience of Jesus in the wilderness. The story of the temp...

The noise of our culture can, if we let it, turn our lives into a barely controlled panic. Life can start to feel like a run down the cattle chute, blindly following the one directly in front of us, never stopping for fear of the cattle prod. No idea where we’re going but too afraid to stop. The freedom of Jesus is the opposite of this blind death march down the cattle chute. The freedom we have i...

There is a lot of talk and honestly, a lot of confusion around the word “freedom” today. Freedom is a word that the New Testament speaks of fairly often, so it seems like a good place to start this study is with Jesus. The first passage we are going to look at is an excerpt from a longer conversation Jesus had with certain Jewish leaders. They seemed to feel that they were already free, they also...

Ever since I was young, I found myself a bit frustrated with the Gospels because I wished Jesus would just teach me what I wanted to know. I often wished that the Gospel writers would have spent more time on the teachings of Jesus and less time on his travels to and fro and the various people and interruptions he met along the way. I mean, here is the greatest teacher of all time, and the gospels...