Whispers of Truth

My precious cousin's father passed away last night. I don't have (nor do I need) all the details, but he had been hospitalized or in a hospice center for several weeks, mostly separated from those he loved following complications from a surgery. When my mom passed the news to me last night, she made the comment that somehow it seemed so sad not to go to a funeral. The thought seems absurd on the surface, but even though a paradox exists, the reality of the situation is that the normal process of grieving and saying goodbye has been altered by the weird stasis of the COVID-19 quarantine. However, Jesus sees not only my cousin's father and his family, but all the precious saints currently passing from this world isolated from their loved ones. This world is broken, riddled by sin and death, but Jesus has gone to prepare a place for his own.  Jesus told his disciples this to comfort them as he spoke of His leaving: Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believ...

MY COMFORT This world revolves around comfort and tells us to take all we can get, but God’s economy stands in direct opposition to this. I have to constantly remind myself that being comfortable is highly overrated. In Luke 8, Jesus offers his disciples the Parable of the Sower, who always sowed good seed, but the varying conditions of the soil determined the receptivity and growth of the seed implanted. Good seed sown into good ground in the right conditions bears fruit.  Likewise, in Galatians 6, Paul reminds his readers that “whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (v. 7, NASB). Then he expounds saying, “For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption” (v. 8a).  Being a word-loving Word lover, this sent me to Webster’s 1828 for a deeper look at the word  corruption . Webster as usual offers insight into what it looks like to sow to my own flesh. In his definition of corruption, he uses words like dep...

If you’ve turned on a news channel or read an online paper or even scrolled through Facebook lately, you’ve heard or seen much talk about “flattening the curve” of the Coronavirus and why it is so important to stay home, to be consistent, to be safe. Maybe that (in addition to spending a lot of time reading parables in the gospels) is why I woke up this morning wondering about what causes a person’s walk with Christ to “flatten out.”  Make no mistake that the world holds many stumbling blocks. Recently I wrote about how we listen being important, but who we listen to also matters . If we are not attending churches where the truth is taught, there is little hope for intentional growth and much opportunity for oblivious regression. Unfortunately, many today eagerly ingest false teaching on a regular basis and have no idea that what they’re listening to is opposed to the truth of the gospel. Many have remarked how wonderful it is that the gospel has had the opportunity to go into...

In my study time this morning, I’ve been examining the introduction to Luke chapter six, which immediately follows the beginning of the Pharisees’ intent scrutiny of Jesus.  Chapter five ends with Jesus’ words directed to the Pharisees about putting old wine in new wineskins. Either God’s regeneration of us is complete, absolute, with nothing left unchanged, or it will not survive. Becoming a Christian is not simple addition to my old way of life, involving adding in some church and hanging out with Christians and Bible reading and singing hymns. It is not an adding on of anything—rather, it is the replacement of Christ for me that covers my sins and makes me acceptable to God; it is Christ in me that fills my life with new desires to serve him (not a polished up version of me), and it is Christ with me that helps me walk a new path daily in discipline and love and gratitude that overflows (not one path during the week and another on Sundays).  Chapter six finds the ...

Each week since the quarantine began and our church’s Bible studies have been unable to meet, I have prepared video studies to facilitate our virtual discussions on Thursday evenings. The process is uncomfortable and the results unpolished, and it is nothing like preparing to meet with fellow believers to open a Bible and find both encouragement and discipline in the Word together. If you are a video person (which I am not usually inclined towards), the links to each of these are below, as I have done much less writing in the strange business of this quarantine season: Luke 4:1-13         https://youtu.be/jT_upeUwUME Luke 4:14-37 https://youtu.be/C5YtaVy9rTc Luke 4:38-5:16    https://youtu.be/GKz3SArFgLE Luke 5:17-39 https://youtu.be/_KYnuH3V7hA Luke 6:1-12         https://youtu.be/bOA5RABzLNo Luke 6:12-23       https://youtu.be/CS5Bs3ZU2N8 Luke 6:24-36       https://youtu.be/buj5a5iu_O...