Episodes
Thursday Jun 30, 2016
COA #38 - Revere No Idols
Thursday Jun 30, 2016
Thursday Jun 30, 2016
This sounds like a command straight out of the Old Testament. What came to your mind when you read the words--a crucifix on the wall, a statuette, a golden calf, a revered object such as people have been falsely worshipping for thousands of years? However, here we're talking about idols of another kind.
Wednesday Jun 29, 2016
Command #54 - Seek No Spiritual Signs
Wednesday Jun 29, 2016
Wednesday Jun 29, 2016
One of the curious anomalies to arise out of the Evangelical and Pentecostal renewal of the late 20th century has been an inordinate obsession with spiritual "signs and wonders" as validating the work of the Holy Spirit. Entire churches, ministries, evangelistic movements, and schools have devoted themselves to the miraculous, and the encouragement of its manifestations to the exclusion of many other aspects of a rounded Christian life of obedience.
Tuesday Jun 28, 2016
COA #37 - Avoid Worldly-Minded Believers
Tuesday Jun 28, 2016
Tuesday Jun 28, 2016
This is clearly the most difficult of the three "avoidance commands" (participation, association, avoidance) to lay hold of.
Monday Jun 27, 2016
Monday Jun 27, 2016
There are a variety of Commands that all point in the same direction: Give and expect nothing in return. Some emphasize giving more than has been requested: Go two miles instead of one, when asked for your coat give your cloak as well. The Command before us from Luke 6 contains three messages.
Friday Jun 24, 2016
Command #52 - Let Your Light Shine Before Men
Friday Jun 24, 2016
Friday Jun 24, 2016
We continue to encounter the strange dichotomy in the Lord's words between public and private righteousness. How do we balance, Beware of practicing your piety before men, with, Let your light so shine before men? The two commands appear less than a chapter apart in the Sermon on the Mount, yet seem to instruct us in completely opposite directions.
Thursday Jun 23, 2016
COA #36 - Do Not Associate With Immorality
Thursday Jun 23, 2016
Thursday Jun 23, 2016
The mirror probes deeper. Indulgence in sin may be passive. Participation raises the stakes a little higher. Now the command becomes active, forceful, imperative: Don't even associate with immorality.
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Command #51 - Guard Against Hypocrisy
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Note that Jesus does not directly command Don't be a hypocrite. Is the reason perhaps because, in truth, to a degree we cannot help being hypocrites. We are all sinners, and thus hypocrites, together. It is part of the human condition.
Tuesday Jun 21, 2016
COA #35 - Do Not Participate in the Sins of Others
Tuesday Jun 21, 2016
Tuesday Jun 21, 2016
The practicality of the progression continues to tighten like a noose around our necks. Can it get any more real than this -- Do not participate in the sins of others.
Monday Jun 20, 2016
Command #50 - Honor Your Father and Mother
Monday Jun 20, 2016
Monday Jun 20, 2016
None of the Ten Commandments has been so diminished of its power by our modern culture more than honor to one's parents. Independence is the god of our age. The cancer that has infected our time is not merely anti-family, as serious as that threat is. It goes far deeper.
Friday Jun 17, 2016
Command #49 - Do Not Exalt Yourself
Friday Jun 17, 2016
Friday Jun 17, 2016
After passing through Galilee and returning home to Capernaum, Jesus posed a very pointed question to the disciples: "What were you discussing on the way?" Their response was that of a group of children caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar. Mark merely says, "They were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest." Jesus had nailed them, and they knew it.