Search Results

For analysis of the structure of 1 John, see the commentary on 1 John 3.  First John 5:1-6 is the heart of the final summons of this epistle’s closing appeal that calls its recipients to (...)

This passage echoes a prominent theme in John’s Gospel, namely, what it means to be children of God (tekna theou). John 1:12-13 declares that “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he (...)

Despite bearing the title “the First Epistle of John,” the author of this work is not named in the writing, and it is not written in the standard form of a letter in the Greco-Roman (...)

Jesus’ death on the cross was traumatic.  Mary Magdalene’s announcement of her witness to the risen Lord could not convince them. The empty tomb is not the sign of his resurrection for the disciples but (...)

Psalm 118 is the psalm of psalms for the Easter season.1 The early church found in Psalm 118 the words of Jesus who remembered his suffering and persecution during Holy Week and who gave thanks (...)

We have seen so many tombs—and countless deaths that could not even have proper tombs— since the outbreak of COVID-19.  There has been so much grieving and weeping over innumerable losses. The pandemic brutally took (...)

This is not only a story about what Jesus knew (that “his hour had come”), it is also—and, perhaps, more importantly—about Jesus’ love (13:1). Did Jesus’ knowledge or his love drive his action? Wasn’t it (...)

As we near Holy Week, we arrive in Jerusalem with Jesus in the Gospel of John.  Jesus enters to much fanfare, with calls of “Hosanna” from Psalm 118 and a re-enactment of Zechariah 9:9 marking (...)

At first, John 2:13-22 seems like an odd passage for the Third Sunday in Lent.  The temple clearing comes much later in the Synoptics, immediately preceding Jesus’s Passion. It is a fitting passage, however, because (...)

In his two volumes, Luke provides a treasure-trove of sermon manuscripts. Last week, he gave us the Bible’s fullest account of John the Baptist’s preaching, and this week gives us Jesus’ inaugural sermon in Nazareth. (...)