Posts from April 2020

I have several items of clothing, hats, caps, etc that hold special value to me. I treasure these items because of the person who had them before me. Today’s note concerns some clothing that should have been priceless to those who possessed them but attached no lasting value to them. The practice of taking the clothes of the condemned was common in Jesus’ day. As Jesus was crucified, John records, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His…

From the earliest days of Jesus’ ministry, many believed Him to be a Savior, and He was, but they misunderstood His mission. Laboring under Roman domination and longing for the “good old days” when Israel was a dominant force among the nations, the Jews looked for a leader to break the iron shackles of Rome (see Daniel 2) and restore Israel to prominence. Earlier in John’s gospel, the people sought to take Jesus by force and make Him their king…

“Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are… I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who shall believe on Me through their word; that they may all be one, as You Father are in Me, and I in You; that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:11b, 20-21). In the final moments before His…

I am what some call a cessationist. That is, I believe the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit ended in the days shortly following the close of the New Testament. I believe the Bible makes that teaching clear in passages like 1 Corinthians 13:8-11, Ephesians 4:7-16, and 2 Timothy 3:16-17. I believe it because of the Bible’s testimony as to how the miraculous measure of the Holy Spirit was administered in New Testament times as seen in Acts 8:16-19, Acts…

“I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Concerning the branches, the primary thing that one should understand in his study and application of the paragraph (John 15:1-8) is this–Jesus identifies the apostles as the branches. This is critical, particularly as we consider the immediate and remote contexts. In the text immediately preceding (14:25-31), Jesus concludes chapter 14 with…

“One of the mistakes humans make is believing there is only one way… There are many paths to what you call God… There couldn’t possibly be just one way… With the millions of people in the world there couldn’t possibly be one way.” So said Oprah Winfrey on her television program back in the early 1990s. You may see it for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb2RUpMDk34 Thankfully, there were two women in the audience who stood up to her baseless pontification and…

Here in northwest Alabama there are a number of fine religious folk who practice foot washing as a religious ordinance, or at least profess to do so. Shortly after I moved to this area, and not being particularly familiar with this group, I inquired of one their preachers concerning the doctrines that set them apart from other groups of the same general persuasion. He told me they believed in foot washing, but he couldn’t remember the last time his church…

In John 12:32 Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” There is one word in this text that I find particularly intriguing and important, namely the word “draw.” This word generally means to take in hand (as a sword -John 18:10), to gather a net of fish (cf John 21:6, 11), to drag against one’s will (cf Acts 16:19; 21:30), or to compel (James 2:6). But there is also…

There are two verses people often hear or use from this text. The first is John 11:35, “Jesus wept,” the shortest verse in the English Bible. The second is Jesus’ in verse 25, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die. He shall live.” Few verses are cited more often in funerals than this one. But there are many other lessons to be gleaned from this text. Consider these: God has a…

My failings as a parent were many. But I can honestly say that all I did (or didn’t do) for my kids was an honest attempt for them to have an abundant life then and even now that they are grown and on their own. In John 10:10, Jesus declared, “I have come that they might have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” It is my personal conviction that the abundant life Jesus came to bring is…