The Gospel of Matthew #14

I don’t want to be misunderstood; I agree entirely with Paul when he says:
For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:...

The Gospel of Matthew #13

One day when I was praying forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors it dawned on me that I was praying in the first-person plural. I was not...

The Gospel of Matthew #12

Have you ever wondered why some people refuse to swear in court? So when swearing in witnesses and jurors, the court often asks someone to swear or af...

The Gospel of Matthew #11

When Jesus said, Don’t think I am come to destroy the law. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill it, I don’t really think Jesus’ disciples thought...

Understanding the Fall

If there is one concept that is central to Christian teaching along with creation and redemption, it is the fall of man. The concept may be integral t...

The Gospel of Matthew #10

You know, I think Christianity was a lot simpler before the first theologians came along. The early Christian evangelists, for example, going from tow...

The Gospel of Matthew #9

I believe that most people in the world want to be right. I certainly don’t know a soul who wants to be wrong, plans so that he is wrong, works so tha...

The Gospel of Matthew #8

Imagine yourself walking down the aisle in your supermarket, filling up your basket with things from right and left, and spending all your hard-earned...

The Gospel of Matthew #7

Do you believe that it was possible for Jesus to sin? Oh, I know that Jesus did not sin—that is not even a question—but was it possible for him to sin...

The Culture War

I told you so. Months ago, I told my audience that Christians were making a big mistake when they allowed themselves to be characterized as Christian...

The Gospel of Matthew #6

John the Baptist was a very influential preacher. He was not a limousine evangelist; he did not fly into town on a jet and get picked up in a limo. He...

The Gospel of Matthew #5

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a mere five miles from Jerusalem as the crow flies. It would have been very easy for the religious and political establis...

The Gospel of Matthew #4

Welcome back, members of the jury. Today we are continuing with the testimony of one Matthew—also known as Levi—former tax collector and later discipl...

The Gospel of Matthew #2

I want to pose yet another mystery about the four Gospel accounts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But before I can do that, we need to consider some t...

The Gospel of Matthew #3

It is staggering to consider the amount of work that has gone into the scholarly study and analysis of the Bible. I mean, men will write whole chapter...

The Gospel of Matthew #1

Today, I have a curious job. I want to take a book that is probably very familiar to you and make it unfamiliar. The book is the Gospel According to M...

The Word Was Precious

If the word of God is water, the history of Man is like a vast desert, with a spring here and there. You would think, that being the case, that we wou...

Interpreting the Bible

I had a friend some time ago who loved to argue the Bible, and whenever we got to a certain point, he would say Well, the Bible says what it means and...

Introduction to the New Testament #12

The Book of Acts sits in a pivotal position in the New Testament. The early Church fathers tended to speak of the New Testament in terms of Gospels an...

Introduction to the New Testament #11

The Gospel according to John is a very special book. If you ask me to explain why, I would have a hard time telling you. It is the fourth Gospel, but...

Introduction to the New Testament #10

We take the reading of histories for granted, and it is hard to realize that most people haven’t got a clue what it takes to actually write a history....

Introduction to the New Testament #9

Among the earliest Christians, Mark did not command the attention of the Fathers. According to Everett Harrison, they placed Matthew and Luke in the m...

Whatever Happened to the Bible?

When I was a lot younger, I was associated with a church that was, hands down, the most Bible-reading group of people I have ever known. With all of t...

Introduction to the New Testament #8

When you pick up the Bible to begin reading the New Testament, you will commonly start with Matthew. It may come as a surprise to you to learn that th...

Introduction to the New Testament #7

There is little to learn from the order in which the books of the New Testament are presented in the Bibles we have today. There is no evidence that t...

Introduction to the New Testament #6

The New Testament is really an amazing set of documents. It is only logical to ask how it got written in the first place. We have already talked about...

Introduction to the New Testament #5

The New Testament is really a miracle in every way. We now know that most of the books that form our New Testament were written in a short period betw...

About the Old Testament

What did the First Christians believe about the Old Testament? I might as well have asked what they believed about the Bible because, as the faith dev...

Introduction to the New Testament #4

When you think about it, it is a logical question. Why didn’t Jesus write his own book? For that matter, why didn’t an angel hand the prophets a golde...

Introduction to the New Testament #3

It is of some interest that the New Testament church soldiered on for some 20 years before anyone wrote down anything that has remained for us to look...

Introduction to the New Testament #2

When you sit down to read the New Testament, you encounter a strange cast of characters. I say strange—but only strange to us. The New Testament write...

Introduction to the New Testament #1

Imagine that you are in a room, all by yourself. No one else is there. No one else is supposed to be there. You are in the process of carrying out a r...

A Day of Prayer

How to Read the Bible

I forget where I first saw the book title, How to Read the Bible, but I recall a certain, what shall we say, amusement. I thought, Find a comfortable...

Compassion and the State

God forbid we, as a nation, should ever stop caring about the children and about the poor, but real care should lead us to call a failure what it is—a...

The Book of Daniel #8

No word from the Bible conjures up more dread than the word Antichrist. It is kind of unfortunate, because the word is not used in the Bible in the se...

The Book of Daniel #7

Early in the 2nd century BC, a truly vile man came on the scene in the Middle East. What is it about planet earth that our soil periodically brings fo...

The Book of Daniel #6

One of the most fascinating prophecies in the Book of Daniel (and one that raises as many questions as it answers) is the 70 weeks prophecy at the end...

A Forecast for the Future

If you were looking for a resolution for the new year (or the new decade), you'd have to go a long way to do better than this:
Wash you, make yo...

About Christmas

What did the First Christians believe and practice about Christmas? I know in a way that is a loaded question, because the word Christmas is found now...