Do you find that some aspects of the Christmas story, no matter how familiar, stand out to you more some years than others? For me this season, it was those mysterious magi. What do we really know about these exotic visitors from a distant land? Are they a fulfillment to Biblical prophesies, and if so, […]
Jordan is a country full of surprises, mainly of how many Biblical sites there are. One of my favorites is Mt. Nebo, the traditional site thought to be where Moses hands over the reins to his number 2 in command, Joshua. Was it because Moses was tired and decided to give up leadership to the […]
One of the more arresting aspects of traveling to Israel, particularly the Galilee area, is how nuances of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels come to life in wholly unexpected ways. I had such a moment at Caesarea Philippi. It all began with the familiar passage in Mark 8:27-29: 27 Jesus went on with his disciples to […]
You start to notice it from the art of the early centuries of Christianity: in the Roman catacombs alone there are over 55 paintings of Lazarus’s resurrection. Roughly an equal number depict this ministry-changing event (told only in John’s Gospel), on Roman sarcophagi, the marble caskets where nobility were buried. Dozens more depictions of Jesus’ […]
The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) share similarities with each other, including their versions of Jesus’ parables. (The Gospel of John doesn’t contain parables.) When I discovered that Jesus’ parables constitute over one-third of the Master’s teachings in these three books, it was time to treat them as more than loved stories whose characters […]
