23-1105: The message of the gospel is our means and our mission; the grace of God through Jesus Christ from first to last. Paul is writing to Timothy his last words, and exhorting him to endure in gospel mission. His words are serious and weighty because he wants Timothy to carry on and multiply...
23-1029: Generosity flows from a heart that weighs its giving by the promise of God’s all-sufficient grace above one’s personal need. When Jesus teaches on generosity He uses a most unlikely model, a poor widow. Knowing that the total amount of her gift was incomparably less than anyone else’s, Jesus stated that her gift...
23-1015: Grace motivates Christians to live faithful as stewards so that the discipline of giving produces greater grace for stronger faith in life. Every Christian should desire to know how the Bible instructs us to steward our treasure in life. But this is an area where many Christians falter. As a matter of fact,...
23-1008: Christ-followers live as stewards of the Lord Jesus in all of life to walk in His blessing. Jesus teaches his disciples how to live as faithful servants for the blessing of God on life. The way a servant lives to receive the master’s blessing is captured in one word, steward. A steward is...
23-1001: God entrusts the treasure of the gospel to all who believe in Jesus to serve in our generation and pass it on to the next. Paul, now advanced in years, writes to a younger Timothy while awaiting sentencing from his second imprisonment. There is a seriousness in what he writes to clarify what...
23-0924: God confronts our rebellious heart with His relentless grace to invite us to trust His steadfast love and rest in His sovereign plan. In this last chapter we learn the motive that made Jonah run, he didn’t want God to save the Ninevites. Jonah grows exceedingly angry with God. God confronts him in...
23-0917: God, who is sovereign to save, calls His people to be a faithful witness so the nations can hear and believe. Jonah goes to Nineveh to preach the message God gave him, but he is not thrilled about it. The text seems to show that he gave no extra effort, only the bare...
“The tension of Jonah’s life, however, is that he loves Yahweh but has taken serious action against God’s intention to offer forgiveness to the violent (as he and Yahweh discuss in ch. 4). The tension between his “temple piety” and his attitudes toward the unjust world are true to life. The tensions represents the...
23-0903: God calls people for His glory and pursues us in our rebellion to save us by His relentless grace. Jonah is an interesting story with a maximum amount of drama compressed into only a few shorts chapters. Like watching a father and his son, Jonah shows us how big, how REALLY big, God’s...
23-0827: Jesus gave baptism and the Lord’s Supper as a testimony to remember and declare the gospel. The two ordinances of the church are important because of their central role in our witness. These are not religious ritual, and should never be reduced to this. Rather, they are essential practices that center our faith...