Archive for the ‘Bible Study’ Category

When I Don’t Know What to Pray

Sometimes silence is golden. In a world riddled with marketing messages that assault our brains at every turn, silence is rare. It’s precious. It’s fleeting, and it should be sought after for reflection – to slow down the pace of life and reflect. Think. Pray. Silence is also terrifying. In the silence, there’s only you. [...]

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What is Truly Constraining Me?

“Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). The dictionary definition is the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. So important is freedom that it, in concept, is what Christ has set us free for: Why are we [...]

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The End of Church Discipline is Evangelism

There are very few times we have the recorded words of Jesus giving us a step by step methodology. It’s not that He doesn’t give instruction, for He certainly does. But Jesus didn’t come to primarily give instruction; He came to seek and save the lost. Bearing that in mind, most of His words are [...]

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Why did “Saul” Change His Name to “Paul”?

Saul met Jesus on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. The murderer became the defender. The Pharisee became the grace addict. The persecutor because the persecuted. As the scales of deception fell from his eyes, Saul was awakened to the truth of the gospel, and he was never the same. But we don’t have a [...]

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The “Right Time” God

God operates on a different time table than we do as humans. We know, this of course. Of course we do. We remember what Peter wrote during a day when people were arguing that because Jesus had not yet returned, that Christianity could not be believed: “Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: [...]

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The Divine Escape Artist

There are some verse in Scripture, I think, that are intentionally ambiguous. These are little nuggets that are placed there, without too much explanation, that allow our sanctified imaginations to run freely and wonder exactly what that looked like. Think of a passage like Luke 4, where Jesus has come back to His home town [...]

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Small is Good

The most dominant theme in the teaching of Jesus isn’t about hell, money, or even righteousness. It’s about the kingdom of God. Most other subjects, in fact, are presented in a “kingdom-type” of understanding. Jesus taught broadly about the kingdom of God; most of these specific subjects somehow fit under that umbrella. The kingdom of [...]

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How Jesus Gets Past a Locked Door

“In the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because of their fear of the Jews. Then Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ ” (John 20:19). It had been an exhausting roller coaster of emotions. There was the night [...]

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Top to Bottom – Not Bottom to Top

There’s a little detail in the account of Jesus’ crucifixion in Matthew that’s begging to be paid attention to: “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and [...]

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Maundy Thursday

I found this article from Desiring God about Maundy Thursday to be helpful: In the UK a few years back a group of church leaders used a Maundy Thursday church service to do something extraordinary. As people entered the church for the Thursday gathering of Holy Week, elders greeted them on their knees in the [...]

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