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The fourth week is devoted solely to the coveting commandment(s). The decision to have a single Sunday just for the coveting commandment(s) may seem odd. The reason for this choice is to emphasize that so (...)

The second week in this four-week series on the Ten Commandments is devoted to Exodus 20:3-11, which is the first table of the Decalogue — those laws that govern our relationship with God. Preaching text: (...)

My teacher James Arne Nestingen once said, “Every preacher should preach through the Ten Commandments once every three years.” Ideally, a sermon series on the Decalogue would run twelve weeks — one week to proclaim (...)

My teacher James Arne Nestingen once said, “Every preacher should preach through the Ten Commandments once every three years.” Ideally, a sermon series on the Decalogue would run twelve weeks — one week to proclaim (...)

What is an interesting, even if somewhat troubling, aspect of this text is the emphasis the apostle places on like-mindedness. He writes, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing (...)

We often speak of Philippians in terms of being a friendship or joyful letter from the apostle to one of his congregations. What we often skip over is that this is one of his prison (...)

Any attempt to harmonize John’s version of Jesus’ demonstration in the temple in 2:13-22 with the Synoptic accounts (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46) risks missing John’s theological “take” on this important moment in the (...)

Notes for a four-week preaching series on Sacraments. The sacraments are sometimes called the “means of grace,” the ways through which God works to promise, to free, to forgive, and to claim people, to make (...)

Accounts of the Temptation in the Wilderness appear in all three Synoptic Gospels. The story in the Gospel of Mark is notoriously brief, consisting of only two verses (1:12-13). The accounts in Matthew and Luke (...)

John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve and hence humanity from God’s original created perfection, is fairly well known. Much less well known, unfortunately, is the sequel, Paradise (...)