Tag: Hard passages

Digging in Deeper: Mark 6:45

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“Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the charges critics like to level at the Scriptures is that they are so riddled with contradictions that they can’t possibly be trusted to convey anything resembling the truth. In most cases this charge is fairly easy to dispatch. Occasionally, though, a thoughtful reading seems to suggest that some of these critics have a point. After all, when there are multiple versions of the same stories – as happens fairly frequently in the Gospels – and the versions seem to be contradictory at so many different points, what are we supposed to do with that? This morning we’re going to start talking about one of Jesus’ most famous miracles: walking on water. Before we get into the details of the event itself, let’s talk about why we think this really happened.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 5:30

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“Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’”‬ ‭(CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In fact, that’s often the case. And when it happens, we have to simply sit back and marvel at it. Trying to understand will just make our heads hurt. When it comes to the Scriptures, sometimes the things we find are too strange not to be true. This is especially the case when it comes to Jesus and the Gospels. Sometimes the stories the authors tell are so unexpected or seem so different from what we might expect that they have to be true. This is one of them.

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Digging in Deeper: Zechariah 13:3

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“If a man still prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You cannot remain alive because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord.’ When he prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will pierce him through.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How tolerant are you when your children do something wrong? I guess it depends on what kind and how severe of a wrong it is. It also depends on how much of a perfectionist you are and how tired you are and how willing you are to bear with the process of addressing the wrong at the moment. It probably also depends on how old they are and how much intention was involved in their doing it. In other words, it just depends. Okay, let me change the question just a bit and ask it again: How tolerant are you when your children sin? That question may sound similar, but it’s different and its answer matters a whole lot more.

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Right in Our Eyes

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We’re told every single day and everywhere we look that if we will be true to ourselves and do what lies in our hearts, we’ll be on the right track. As we arrive at the end of the book of Judges in our series, Going It Alone, we see a powerful example of the fact that this just isn’t the case. What is the case? Read on to find out.

Right in Our Eyes

Have you ever seen the movie Suicide Squad? It came out a few years ago. They’re working on a sequel/relaunch with a new director and some new key character swaps. D.C. Comics is trying to get all the mileage out of the fan-favorite character Harley Quinn they can, especially after her solo/ensemble film Birds of Prey flopped so badly a few months ago. As far as superhero movies go, Suicide Squad was pretty good. The major villain seemed to serve as more of a placeholder while the stories of the various “heroes” were told, but in that arena, they really hit a home run I thought. It made enough money to prompt the sequels I mentioned, but I can’t see how it will serve as much more than a minor rabbit trail in the larger cinematic universe that D.C. Comics is still trying to build in hopes of rivaling the juggernaut that Marvel has put together. So far, they’re staying pretty far behind in terms of both quality and box office returns.

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Getting Things Right

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In this third part of our series, I Do, we finally start getting practical. In the first part we defined marriage, and last week we talked about its purpose. That’s all good and important to know, but how do we actually get it right? Let’s talk about it starting with a special focus on what husbands need to do if our marriages are going to be what they can be.

Getting Things Right

We’ve talked about this a few times before and will talk about it again in the future, but one of the challenges of being a follower of Jesus committed to the idea that the Scriptures are right and true in everything they affirm is that there are some places that are downright hard to handle. The reasons for the difficulty are sometimes theological, but they are also scientific and cultural and social and relational and even just applicational. For example, the Law of Moses calls for the stoning of incorrigibly rebellious children and at the same time Jesus said that He came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Unless we can successfully understand Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law to mean that we can disregard commands such as that one, other than a strong temptation on rough days—like, say, day four or five of being stranded inside with three increasingly wild boys…not that Lisa and I know anything about that—we need to get used to the idea of living in constant and open rebellion to the Law given by God to His people.

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