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Judgment on Jerusalem’s Enemies Anne Rice, a well-known author and an atheist, wrote a series of books about the life of Christ. In the first, entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, she includes an author’s note which explains how and why she had been drawn back to God. She wanted to understand a historical mystery: the survival of the Jewish...

City of God Every year magazines like Money, Kiplinger, and U.S. News & World Report publish lists of the best places to live. They make their choices based on a variety of factors, including income rates, crime, taxes, and even the number of days of sunshine per year! If such a list were made during the thousand-year reign of Christ, one...

He Came to Serve as God The right start is important for a successful journey. This holds true whether you start your morning with a nutritional breakfast so you can have the mental capacity and energy for the rest of your day, or it can mean enrolling your child in the right school so they can become an outstanding learner and a productive,...

A Prayer-Dependent Life C. Dixon (1854–1925) was a pastor, a Bible expositor, and an evangelist. He published a book series called The Fundamentals with Moody Bible Institute president R. A. Torrey. Dixon wrote on the importance of prayer, “When we depend upon man, we get what man can do; But when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can...

Good Growing Soil How casually we listen to the Word of God! If we don’t like a biblical teaching on spiritual gifts, remarriage, submission, reconciliation, justice, election, or the like, we reject the teaching as false, insensitive, not applicable to our situation, or only half of what the Word of God is saying. In Jesus’ time, everyone...

Desolate of Resources In Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcey, the romantic interest of main character Elizabeth Bennet, says, “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.” As Christ followers, we are to have true humility. It is all too...

Against Religious Tradition “Business as usual” can be a roadblock when it comes to innovation and progress. Whether at work or in our churches, if we do things just because “that’s the way we have always done it,” we may be standing in the way of needed improvements. In Mark 7, Jesus confronts some traditions practiced by the Pharisees and...

Private Miracles P.T. Barnum made history when he toured the United States in the mid- 1800s with his self-proclaimed Greatest Show on Earth. Barnum invented the art of the spectacle with curious exhibits and straight-out hoaxes that drew enormous crowds clamoring to buy tickets. In contrast, Jesus had no such desire to be viewed as a local...

The Yeast of Unbelief Have you ever purchased one of those small packets of yeast for baking bread? That tiny bit of granulated yeast is living and active, and it’s the key ingredient needed for bread to rise. In today’s passage, yeast is used as a warning about disbelief. At this stage in Mark’s narrative, you would hope the disciples were...

Glorified and Clarified American astronaut Scott Kelly describes the first time he saw Earth from space, saying, “As the Sun came up I was absolutely blown away by how incredibly beautiful our planet Earth is. Absolutely breathtaking. Like someone took the most brilliant blue paint and painted a mural right in front of my eyes. I knew right...