“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, He had to be thinking of this passage from Jeremiah. Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the […]
A few years ago we studied the book of Revelation in our adult bible study class. And as we read through and studied that book chapter by chapter, verse by verse, one of the recurring themes that we kept noticing was just how little in that book was original to John. Much if not most […]
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.” I know me better than anyone short of God Himself, so I know better than anyone else the sins that try me. I know my temptations, my weaknesses, and more to the point, I know when I give in to […]
In his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Johnathan Edwards preached of hell’s reality, of God’s grace, and of our deep indebtedness to God for our salvation. It was typical preaching from the Great Awakening and used the now-famous image of God holding humankind over the fires of hell as a […]
Jesus was deeply inclusive, and it drove the Pharisees nuts. At his first adult synagogue service, He quoted Isaiah as His personal mission statement. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from […]