Fasting in the Old & New Testaments
Fasting in the Bible is a setting aside of time to abstain from food to repent from sin and seek God. We see this practice span both Old and New Testaments. What follows here is a brief overview of the practice in each testament. Fasting in the Old Testament In the Old Testament, fasting is […]
Sermon on the Mount: What Is Love in Christianity?
What is love in Christianity? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us about the love God has for us and we are called to have for each other. If you made a list of “The Top 10 Greek Words Normal Churchgoers Know,” agape would be on that list. It’s the word Jesus uses […]
Sermon on the Mount: Salt and Light
“You are the salt of the earth. . . You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:13-14, NIV) When Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth/light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14), remember that his direct audience is the disciples. The “you” refers to those people who actually live out the things he […]
God’s Will…Period.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder if we get too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We know the words. We know them so well that if someone started praying them out loud in a church service, like a kid saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we would jump right in. We would speak up, […]
Beatitudes: The Path of the Kingdom
Jesus’ original audience often misunderstood him because they filtered his teachings through their preconceived worldview and the skewed questions that flowed from it. We have a different worldview with different questions, but we basically do the same thing. In the Sermon on the Mount, where we see a bunch of rules, Jesus is trying to […]
The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock: 3 Questions to Ask About the Way We Build
“The wise man built his house upon the rock.” By “rock,” Jesus meant his teachings. Unfortunately, it is very possible to hear the teachings of Jesus but not to put them into practice. When we only hear—and don’t obey—Jesus’ teachings, we find ourselves cycling through the same bad decisions and experiencing spiritual stagnancy for years. […]
Sermon on the Mount: Building Your House
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But […]
Sermon on the Mount: “Lord, Lord”
For most of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been happy to dance in the fuzzy intersection between the “now” and the “not yet”—between the old age that is passing away and the new age that is breaking in. So, it often seems like what he says could apply to either this life or […]
