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On May 8, 2025 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

House Inspection

If you don’t care for your house for a while, you slowly grow accustomed to your surroundings. You adjust. Those things that are broken that you couldn’t get to quickly, you learn to work around and may even eventually think that you have no need for them. Those holes in the wall become a part of the décor. Those bad smells from different sources become a part of the atmosphere of your home, so that you become nose blind to them. What initially repulsed you is now a part of your environment.

You may not notice the things in disrepair or the smells in your home, but others will. If someone comes from a place where things are kept in good order and the source of repugnant smells is dealt with immediately, he will notice the things in your home.

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On April 30, 2025 By In Church, Theology

The Surprise Bridegroom

Weddings are proclamations of the gospel. They are either faithful or unfaithful proclamations of the gospel, but they are proclamations of the gospel. They can take the gospel seriously and proclaim it with dignity, or they can be turned into a trivial ceremony of self-expression. In every wedding, nonetheless, there is a proclamation of the gospel. This is so because marriage is ultimately the story of Christ Jesus and his bride, the church.

Weddings begin and end the Scriptures. The world begins with a wedding on the sixth day of the first week, and, in Revelation 21-22, the bride is adorned for the bridegroom at the end of history. God gave marriage to man as a gift to reflect the marriage of Christ and his church and to participate in the mission of Christ and his church. It is no wonder, then, that Jesus begins his ministry of signs at a wedding (Jn 2:1-11). Jesus quietly surprises us at the wedding in Cana as he shows himself to be the true Bridegroom.

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On April 24, 2025 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

Stairway To Heaven

Nathanael is flabbergasted at Jesus’ knowledge of him before they met face-to-face. Philip told Nathanael that they had found the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote: Jesus, the son of Joseph, the one from Nazareth. Nathanael was in disbelief that God’s “good one” would come from Nazareth. Philip called him to “come and see.” Once he met Jesus and Jesus told him about his “vision” of Nathanael under the fig tree, Nathanael confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, the King of Israel. Jesus tells him that if he believed because he saw Nathanael under the fig tree, just wait. He and the rest of the disciples will see greater things than these; namely, they will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (Jn 1:43-51).

This scene of calling Philip and Nathanael fits within a larger structure in the opening of John’s Gospel. After strongly alluding to the fact that the Word-made-flesh has come to make a new creation in his Prologue (Jn 1:1-18), John then lays out a week in 1:19—2:11 marked out clearly by John’s “and the next/following day” (1:29, 35, 43). Days five and six are skipped to move to the seventh day in 2:1 (“after three days”) when Jesus brings in a Sabbath rest by turning water into wine. Each of these days has echoes of the original creation days.

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On April 20, 2025 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Stones Cry Out: The Stone Cut Out Of The Mountain

Easter Sunday Meditation

When Jesus made his Royal Entry into Jerusalem, his disciples proclaimed him King, singing Psalm 118. The Pharisees understood the implications of this. The disciples were confessing that Jesus was David’s son and heir. He was the one to whom the Father promised the nations for his inheritance (Ps 2). They demanded that Jesus quiet his disciples. Jesus replied that if his disciples were silenced, the stones would cry out that he was king (Lk 19:40).

The Pharisees, along with the rest of the Jews, became unwitting (?) characters in the story. Psalm 118 says that David’s son is a stone that the builder rejected. This stone would become the head of the corner or the chief cornerstone. These Jews were the builders who rejected David’s stone. They tried to silence the Stone.

It looked as if they succeeded. Since Jesus didn’t silence his disciples, they did by arresting Jesus and putting him to death. When Jesus cried out his last words from the cross, all the stones appeared to be silent. However, Jesus was placed in a tomb or memorial cut out of a rock with a stone rolled in front of the entrance. Luke’s word translated “tomb” is more literally, “memorial.” God sets up covenant memorials so that he can look upon them and hear them (cf. Ge 9:12-17; Ex 28:12, 29). They remind God of his promises; when he sees or hears the memorials, he moves to fulfill his promises.

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On April 19, 2025 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Stones Cry Out: The Memorial Stone

A Holy Saturday Meditation

The Pharisees’ desire that the disciples be silenced while Jesus was entering Jerusalem has been fulfilled. The disciples have been silenced since Jesus’ arrest. Now, Jesus himself has been silenced. His last cry on the cross was the last we heard from him.

But that is not the end of the story. Remember, Jesus told the Pharisees that if the disciples were silenced, the stones would cry out (Lk 19:40). The stones continue their proclamation.

After Jesus dies, Joseph of Arimathea comes and takes Jesus’ body to a tomb “cut from the rock” or “hewn from stone.” He lays his body in stone. Will the stones cry out that Jesus was right and the Jews were wrong? Will the stones cry out that Jesus is King? Will the stones cry out that sins are forgiven and death is defeated? Jesus said the stones will cry out, but for now, they are silent.

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On April 18, 2025 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Stones Cry Out: The Rejected Stone

A Good Friday Meditation

The crowds that hailed him as the heir to David’s throne a few days before now cry for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus. The Jews have silenced the disciples. Jesus wouldn’t silence them at their demand on Palm Sunday, so the Jews have taken it upon themselves to do it.

The Twelve have forsaken him. One of the Twelve betrayed him, handing him over to the Jews as some sort of insurrectionist. Peter denied him three times. The others are hiding in silence.

What will happen now? A few days before, Jesus told the Pharisees, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out” (Lk 19:40). With the disciples silenced, the rocks will begin to cry out.

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On April 17, 2025 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Stones Cry Out: Bread To Stone

A Maundy Thursday Meditation

Immediately after Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. The first temptation the devil throws at Jesus after his forty days of fasting is, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Lk 4:3). Jesus isn’t into parlor tricks, nor does he grasp for life within the creation itself in disobedience to his Father’s word. The devil is offering Jesus something before the time he is supposed to have it. Jesus knows not to grasp this prematurely. However, the stones will become bread; or better, the Stone will become bread.

At the Passover before his death, Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to his disciples, proclaiming, “This is my body.” A few days before, on Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem to praise from the crowds, singing, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” This chorus was drawn from Psalm 118. We know that they sang more of the Psalm because the other Gospels record more being sung. They may have sung the whole Psalm. No matter how much of the Psalm they sang, the context of the whole Psalm comes to bear on the parts recorded in the Gospels. The Psalm 118 worshiper prays, “Save us now, we pray,” or “Hosanna.” God answers that prayer and becomes his salvation by making him the chief cornerstone. He is the stone that the builders rejected, but God makes him the head of the corner or the cornerstone of God’s house.

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On April 17, 2025 By In History, Theology

From the Last Supper to Easter: Reconciling John and the Synoptics

Introduction

The first three gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – are called the “Synoptic Gospels” because they each give a similar synopsis of Jesus’s life and ministry.

The fourth gospel – John – is noticeably different. In many cases, John gives more or less information than the Synoptics. For example, John gives a longer time frame than the others, with three years of Jesus’s ministry accounted for.

The differences between John and the Synoptics sometimes pose chronological difficulties. One example is the timeline of Jesus’s crucifixion with two main problems to reconcile.

The problems

Problem #1: The Synoptics indicate that Passover began the night before Jesus’s crucifixion, with Jesus eating the Passover (and instituting the Lord’s Supper) on the same night of his betrayal. Yet on the day of the crucifixion, John states: “Then [the Jewish rulers] led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover” (John 18:28). This sounds as if Passover had not yet begun. John also states that the crucifixion and burial took place on the “Preparation Day of the Passover” (John 19:14).

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On April 10, 2025 By In Theology, Worship

The Stones Cry Out: The Royal Proclamation

“… I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” ~Luke 19:40

Stones speak. That is not the fanciful imagination of authors who personify non-human creatures. The Scriptures reveal that stones talk. Stones aren’t the only non-human creatures that speak. The entire non-human creation speaks. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” So, when Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ command to quiet his disciples from declaring him king, his response of the “stones crying out” is not telling the Pharisees that the speechless stones will, all of a sudden, be able to speak. He tells them that the stones will use their voices to declare him king. At that moment, the disciples give voice to the creation, but the creation will continue to declare, “Jesus is King,” even if the disciples are silenced.

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On March 20, 2025 By In Church, Theology

Baptism: Spirit v. Water?

Baptism debates are constantly rumbling through the Christian church. Who are the proper recipients of baptism? Should baptism be performed by total submersion, or is pouring water over the head a proper baptism? Does God genuinely do something in baptism, or is it a wet testimony of the faith that I have professed in Christ that accomplishes anything regarding forgiveness of sins, union with Christ, or the reception of the Spirit? Is baptism the work of God or the work of man?

Another debate that sometimes arises when discussing baptism is whether genuine baptism is visible or invisible. Some will say that real baptism is the invisible baptism of the Spirit. Visible water baptism is only an inert witness to this invisible baptism. Scriptures such as Romans 6 are approached with presuppositions that deny the possibility that in water baptism, we truly are buried with Christ into his death and are raised by the glory of the Father (Rom 6:4). “Water can’t do that. Paul is referring to a “spiritual baptism,” by which they mean an invisible baptism, a baptism performed by the Spirit in conversion apart from water.

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