Category Archives: Commentary
A Sure 10,000% Return
I had to review the math to be certain. A 100% return on a $10 investment earns you $10. One hundred times $10 is $1,000, which works out to a 10,000% return. So, when Jesus says that those who lose … Continue reading
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How to Apply the Transfiguration
We are passionate for application. Bible studies encourage it. Sermon classes teach it. And society clamors for practical, useful information in the forms of 3-easy-steps to this, and 5-rules for that, and 7-surefire-ways to the other. But as hard as … Continue reading
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To fix our gaze on Christ
In Mark 8:22-26, Jesus heals a blind man. Mark uses several different words for sight or seeing, and the implied progression is from simple biological ability, to an ability to perceive dimly, to the ability to focus and fix his … Continue reading
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Ways to Quench the Spirit
As followers of Christ, we are not supposed to impede the operation of the Holy Spirit who is in us. In fact, there is a sense in which we could not impede him, even if we tried. As Jesus told … Continue reading
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Women’s hats and over-realized eschatology (1 Cor 11)
It isn’t altogether clear that Paul was talking about ladies’ hats in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. Whatever the custom of head ware the Corinthians practiced, and the women were abandoning, cannot be directly translated to Western, Americanized church life. Like other … Continue reading
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Applying Psalm 31
Psalm 31 is perhaps not a messianic psalm in the proper sense: that is, one verse from this Psalm was quoted by Jesus while he was on the cross. “Into your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5). Yet a believer … Continue reading
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Things God Hates
We are sometimes reluctant to attribute hate to God. “God is love,” after all. But usually our reluctance stems from the wickedness we find in our own hateful emotions and desires, which do not seem — and in fact are … Continue reading
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How easy is idolatry? That easy
We must think sometimes that idolatry is difficult. That we would immediately recognize it and run. That we — as good Christ-followers — have other problems to deal with than idolatry. After all, idolatry is so, well, Old Testament. We … Continue reading
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Cutting the pork: Jesus evicts demons and restores a man (Mark 5)
“No one” could subdue the man, “not even” with shackles and chains, and “no one” was able to bind him anymore. He was an exile, a social misfit, an outcast from polite (even impolite) society. He cut himself and beat … Continue reading
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What do YOU want? Realigning our Position
Perhaps one of the best-known verses in Scripture is “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). What may not be so well-known … Continue reading →
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Tagged as kiingdom, Mark 10, ransom, sacrifice, service