The First Advent (Exodus 40:34-38)
Mount Sinai must have been an impressive, even startling, sight. Enveloped in darkness with flashes of lightning, Israel heard the thunder and even, on one occasion, the voice of God. They felt the...
View ArticleOn Reading Philemon
Philemon is a brief letter with only 335 words in the Greek text, and it appears in the New Testament without any specific context. Philemon and Onesimus, the main characters in the letter’s story, are...
View ArticleGod’s Gifts to Israel
Texts: Romans 9:4-5; Psalm 19:7-10; Romans 3:1-2 Days 20-22 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. God chose Israel from among the nations as God’s own firstborn. As firstborn, Israel was tasked with...
View ArticleIsrael Redux: The Messiah Begins His Ministry
Texts: Luke 3:21-22; Luke 4:1-2a, Luke 4:16-21; Matthew 4:13-17 Days 33-36 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Israel needed a do-over. Humanity needed a do-over. The Messiah comes to recapitulate the...
View ArticleJesus Pivots Toward the Cross: Revelation, Transfiguration, and Mission
Texts: Luke 9:18-22, 28-36; 10:17-20; Mark 10:41-45 Days 40-43 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. At some point near the end of his ministry in Galilee and other northern regions, Jesus “set his face...
View ArticleResurrected and Enthroned Lord: Filling the Earth with New Creatures
Texts: Luke 24:30-35; Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 1:20-23; Galatians 6:14-16 Days 52-55 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. We can only imagine the despair of the disciples in the crushing darkness of...
View ArticleLesson 12: Hebrews 7:11-28
Unlike Other High Priests Now if perfection had been attainable through the levitical priesthood—for the people received the law under this priesthood—what further need would there have been to speak...
View ArticleLesson 15: A Better Sacrifice
Hebrews 9:11-28 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once...
View ArticlePsalm 45 — Derek: Meditating on the Way
Abby Kaplan joins Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks to talk about Psalm 45. This royal wedding song has both an original significance in Israel and a messianic meaning. The Psalm, sung by Israel,...
View ArticleLesson 5: The Central Theological Claim (Ephesians 2:11-22)
This is the “key and high point of the whole epistle” (Barth, Ephesians, 1:275). Though the gentiles were once foreigners and aliens from the commonwealth and strangers to the covenants of promise,...
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