Episodes
Thursday Mar 29, 2018
Command #59 - Have Salt in Yourselves
Thursday Mar 29, 2018
Thursday Mar 29, 2018
New Testament scholar William Barclay says plainly about Mark 9:48-50, "These three verses are amongst the most difficult in the New Testament to interpret."
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
Command #58 - Receive the Kingdom of God Like a Child
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
At first I wrote Bring children to me in order to more directly represent Jesus' words. Then I realized that Jesus was addressing a larger principle: The childlikeness required to receive the principles of God's kingdom. There are several huge implications involved.
Thursday Mar 22, 2018
Command #57 - Learn Of Me
Thursday Mar 22, 2018
Thursday Mar 22, 2018
We continually find that the familiarity of certain of Jesus' words often obscures their astonishing meaning. Here, for example, many images of what it means to take upon oneself the Lord's "yoke" spring to mind, along with his oft-quoted words of comfort, You shall find rest for your souls.
Tuesday Mar 20, 2018
Command #56 - Do Not Justify or Worry How To Defend Yourself
Tuesday Mar 20, 2018
Tuesday Mar 20, 2018
Self-defense is one of the most automatic of human responses. When challenged, threatened, contradicted, or accused, we blurt out a defense before the voice of criticism has even died away. Often we do not wait so long as that to defend ourselves, but interrupt to counter the word against us before it is even finished.
Thursday Mar 15, 2018
Command #55 - Be Born Again
Thursday Mar 15, 2018
Thursday Mar 15, 2018
With so much emphasis in Christendom through the centuries on salvation, it is remarkable that Jesus did not spell out in more detail exactly what salvation is. In his conversation with Nicodemus, in which he said that one must be "born again" to see the kingdom of God, in the single most well-known verse of the Bible, he connects being born again with "belief"; For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Tuesday Mar 13, 2018
Command #54 - Seek No Spiritual Signs
Tuesday Mar 13, 2018
Tuesday Mar 13, 2018
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.
Thursday Mar 08, 2018
Command #53 - If Someone Takes From You, Do Not Demand Back What You Have Given
Thursday Mar 08, 2018
Thursday Mar 08, 2018
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.
Tuesday Mar 06, 2018
Command #52 - Let Your Light Shine Before Men
Tuesday Mar 06, 2018
Tuesday Mar 06, 2018
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 Mar 01, 2018
Command #51 - Guard Against Hypocrisy
Thursday Mar 01, 2018
Thursday Mar 01, 2018
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.