November 2020

The Politics Of It All

I can still remember the moment when I first understood that Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to be president anymore. I was downstairs in the fellowship hall at the Advent Christian church in Hyattsville, MD. It was 1988, and I was swilling down some punch with a big glob of vanilla ice cream in it. As […]



October 2020

We Are The Body

Back in 2010 I was riding my bicycle after dark, when I made an unexpected and violent exit from my normal, day-to-day routine. An enraged dog charged out of nowhere and became entangled with the smoothly whirring operation of my 10-speed, which, in turn, caused me to proceed over the handle bars and land with […]



The Good Shepherd

Sheep are the animal most often mentioned in the Bible, and although many analogous comparisons are employed in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and His people, that of shepherd and sheep is definitely a favorite among the biblical writers. In John 10, the next portion of John’s Gospel that we will begin […]



Free Slaves

I once had a friend who told me the unorthodox story of how he first came to put his trust in Jesus for salvation. His Dad had unexpectedly pulled him and his younger brother out of school one day to take them on an impromptu field trip. He was just a young boy at the […]



Is The Bible Reliable

If you turn in your Bibles to the next section of the Gospel of John you will find the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), which contains one of Jesus’ most memorable quotes, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” If you […]



September 2020

Chained Lions

As you all may know, Sarah and I lived and served for nearly a decade at Camp Maranatha in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California. During late summer when the San Jacinto Mountains become a dry, brittle and thirsty place, and the dust along the walkways becomes as fine as baby powder there was […]



Coming and Going

In this message we will continue our study through Jesus’ exchange with the crowds and religious leaders at the festival of booths in Jerusalem. The portion we’ll be spending time in this week is John 7:25-36. Jesus hated puffery and domination of any sort. At every opportunity he confronted those who looked down on others […]



High Stakes Exchange

In the previous message we studied the first thirteen verses of John 7 and now we will be exploring the rest of the chapter. It is a long block of scripture spanning 39 verses. It chronicles more sparring between Jesus and the Pharisees. This time, however, it is playing out in front of a very […]



Unbelieving Brothers

In John 7:1-13 we read about an interesting exchange between Jesus and his siblings. Like everyone else, they are very excited about the miracles he has been working. So, in verses 3-5 they say to Jesus, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no […]



August 2020

Barrier to Belief

Last October we studied the feeding of the 5,000 as part of our message series on the eight miraculous signs of the book of John. This week we’ll be studying what happened next by exploring the second half of John 6. The sixth chapter of John is interesting because it begins like a big bonfire […]