One way to celebrate the resurrection of Christ Jesus is to look at the transforming effect Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance made on a Pharisee, Saul. Because of his Damascus road post-resurrection encounter, Paul considered himself an apostle, as chosen as the original twelve. In his most autobiographical letter, Paul writes the Galatians: 11 For I want […]
Archive | Discipleship
Why was Lazarus’ resurrection so Important to Early Christians?
You start to notice this focus on Lazarus in the earliest centuries of Christianity through the art. In the Roman catacombs alone there are over 55 paintings of Lazarus’s resurrection. Roughly an equal number exist of Roman sarcophagi, the marble caskets in which nobility were buried, depicting this life-affirming story relayed only in John’s Gospel. […]
I Peter: Figures of Speech and Sermons in Stone
“Literature is picture-thinking, ideas made flesh in figures of speech”, wrote a former college professor and friend, Dr. Colin Campbell (from talk given 10/10/15). The author of 1st Peter creates such word pictures for us in spades. Chapter 2 is a rich example as the writer employs a stone metaphor to explain three different functions […]
Where Even Angels “Long to Look”
Do you ever come across a snippet of a verse that so captures your thought and heart that you stop everything to stay with it? Maybe you see how it’s translated across multiple Biblical versions. Maybe you simply sit with it for awhile, listening for further inspiration because you know its coming if you’ll be […]
How Jesus Used His Location to Teach
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 […]
