As we continue on into The Journey through the New Testament, you may remember that I listed four things to keep in mind about the gospels. Well, I thought of one more, so I'll summarize the first four here (the fuller treatment of these is in the post below), and then I'll add the fifth:
1) Events in the gospels are not in chronological order
2) Jesus repeated himself a lot and did some of the same things multiple times
3) The core of Jesus' message is about the Kingdom of God
4) Jesus was always having to manage the crowds - this means at times he has to sneak away to avoid getting arrested before the right time
and...
5) A lot of the controversy in the gospels comes down to the fact that with Jesus, the Gentiles were going to be invited into relationship with God. So a lot of the parables, in addition to being about the Kingdom of God, we also about Jews and Gentiles.
Anyway, you'll see...
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
This is Michael Knowles' commentary on the murder of Charlie Kirk, and directly on the press conference about the arrest - In the middle is a great speech by the governor of Utah - overall excellent stuff if you have 1.5 hr to spend on it
with some Florida colleagues - all of them Protestant, but with varying traditions on the Eucharist - it was encouraging to hear how there are some Protestant denominations that have a real respect for the Sacrament (and I'm not talking about Anglicans or even Lutherans):
