[No Audio] Enter John the Baptist. The strident voice, calling out from the wilderness, invites everyone of his day and ours to take the plunge—not just into the Jordan to…
We like to think of our lives as secure, stable, permanent. We enjoy thinking ourselves as in control. This is a delusion. The truth is that God, the same Creator…
As we saw last week, many Jewish Christians wondered how much of the old ways should be retained. The writer of Hebrews exhorts them to “press on” beyond their comfort…
In the early church, Easter was celebrated every week—so much had changed with Christ’s resurrection that Sunday, the first day of the week, became the new Sabbath. “Christ is risen.…
An essential core of Jesus’ teaching was his use of parable. Mark tells us, “With many parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it.…
When thinking about the prophet Jonah, we dwell so much on his being gobbled up by a big fish that we don’t wrestle with the reason he refuses to go…
If the prophet Jeremiah comes across a bit gloomy and depressed, he has reason to. He lived during Judah’s darkest days, when apostasy, idolatry, perverted worship and moral decay seemed…
Amos was called by God to leave Judah and head north to proclaim His Word to the people. Using easy to understand images, he confronted the powers-that-be to practice justice…
Most of the time, the history of a nation focuses on leaders—kings, generals, titans of industry, etc.—but the Old Testament story line emphasizes prophets instead. Inspired by God to call…
There comes a moment in life when we feel like a “little one.” The challenge before us is daunting, the forces aligned against us insurmountable, the resources we have to…