When John the Baptist started drawing huge crowds in the wilderness, the Pharisees got nervous. Who does this guy think he is? They sent priests and Levites to find out. They first asked John if he was the Christ. No. How about Elijah? Nope. The Prophet? Not him either! The interrogators, frustrated no doubt with his answers so far and feeling pressure to bring something definitive back to the Ph...  Read More

I love the Gospel of John. I love all four gospels, but John is my favorite. It is not a synopsis of the life of Jesus, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke are. It is structured around Jesus’ encounters with different people, like Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, and many more. These encounters each reveal something about Jesus, who He is and why He came. John’s gospel is also built on...  Read More

When Paul asked Philemon to forgive and be reconciled to his runaway slave, Onesimus, he made that appeal on the basis of how Christ forgives and receives us when we have been running from Him. “Receive him as you would receive me,” Paul writes. How could Philemon do that? How could he fully forgive Onesimus’s breach of trust?  Paul could have referred Philemon to what he had written to the church...  Read More

Paul’s letter to Philemon is considered one of the most powerful and eloquent examples of reconciliation in all of history. Paul writes to a friend whose slave has run away, and in his running has found Christ through Paul’s gospel message. You have to look at Paul’s approach to Philemon in asking him to not only forgive his former slave, but to release him and let him help Paul in his imprisonmen...  Read More

In his greeting to Philemon, Paul writes a familiar refrain that never loses its importance: “I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers.” Just a reminder that when a beloved brother or sister in Christ comes into our minds, we can silently thank God for them. You can certainly pray more, but we should be encouraged to not pray less. As you are driving down the road or sitting at your...  Read More

I want to make sure that if I died today my wife would be provided for. There are lots of ways of doing that, and I am not an estate planner, but I will say that we need to follow Paul’s command in 1 Timothy to provide for our households as men. The word for provide means to “take thought…to provide beforehand.” That means for many people that we are to work hard to save, invest, and prepare for t...  Read More

As Paul closes his letter to the church in Colosse, he mentions ten “fellows,” or, partners in the Gospel. Some he calls beloved or faithful or a servant. The first man he mentions, Tychicus, receives the full complement: “He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord.” So, what do we know about this man?  We know that he was probably Paul’s favorite courier. He deli...  Read More

Paul said to the church in Colosse, “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Paul was in the business, if you will, of proclaiming the Gospel. And he was in prison for that very reason. I love that Paul was clearly not concerned abo...  Read More

You have heard the story of the little girl who saw the movie “Cinderella” for the first time and was telling her neighbor about it. The lady said, “I know what happened in the end.” The little girl said, “What?” She replied, “They lived happily ever after!” And the girl said, “Oh, no they didn’t. They got married!” Sadly for many in the world, marriage has fallen into disrepute. But in God’s econ...  Read More

Paul warned the Colossian church against legalism and other “ism-traps,” making a clear argument that we must simply trust what God says about those who have died with Christ. We don’t need to work ourselves into favor with God; we have that perfectly in Christ. If we read what the Bible really says, we will see things as they really are. And that’s a safe place. I have never done any dangerous ro...  Read More

Kent Hughes tells the story of a colleague he once had in the ministry who stopped discussing the meaning of Scripture with him or others because he said he now had a “higher hermeneutic” than others did. He believed that he had gotten to the place in his study of Scripture where he could see “truths that transcended grammatical and traditional theological interpretation.” With self-proclaimed “su...  Read More

 Brothers, God has put in us from birth a desire to protect. That is standard equipment for men. When a man is protecting his family, it is a picture that makes sense and fits with the reality of God’s divine plan. When a woman is left to fend for herself or she tries to assume the role as protector of her household, it is a pitiful sight, one that brings shame and makes us shake our heads in bewi...  Read More