1 Corinthians 15:1-26, 51-57 – Jesus’ resurrection and the future resurrection; death as the last enemy. Often we come to doubt the resurrection. I don’t mean that we intellectually doubt it, although that does happen. I mean we emotionally doubt whether the resurrection is real, and whether it it is for us. This canhappen near…
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 “Faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.” Love. How many sermons on love? How many weddings with this passage? You have to love him/her, they’re your ____. The greatest commandment is to love. Now we have to love, God says so. What do we really…
Acts 18:1-4 – Founding the church at Corinth.1 Corinthians 1:10-18 – Factions in the church and the word of the cross. We’re at another church founding today. Luke gives much less detailthan the last one. Thessalonica seems to go smoother, with conversions,and rougher, with pushback. And while the word argue may put us off tothe entire passage, as it may have last…
Acts 17:1-9 – Founding church at Thessalonica1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 – Paul’s message of thanks to the church at Thessalonica. Acts contains the story of the founding of a church. This is the founding of the church as Thessalonica, one of the churches that letters go to in the New Testament. The Way is new here. This will be the first church here.…
Acts 3:1-10 Healing at the Beautiful Gate; “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus rise and walk.” Everywhere that Jesus goes, people know of his power. They recognize him, and they rush to bring the sick to Jesus. That’s how we would do it as well, I think. If we had…
Acts 1:1-14 How do we share the good news of the resurrection in days like this? How can we use humor to share the joy we have in Christ? Do we have to be sober, somber, serious Christians all the time?
Mark 16:1-8 Resurrection, empty tomb, and fleeing in fear. There is a meme about Jesus being a zombie. You can find it witheverything else, on the internet. In the 19th century, people were deathlyafraid of being buried alive, so much so that there were bells attached to astring that went into a coffin, so that if the buried person was alive, theycould…
Mark 11:1-11 – Triumphal entryMark 14:3-9 – Woman anoints Jesus at Bethany Something interesting happens in these passages. There’s acombination of audacity and direction that occurs. Before Jesus entersJerusalem, he sends the disciples in to get the donkey. The arrangementshave already been made. They are just to go and pick up the rental donkeyfor Jesus…
Mark 13:1-8, 24-37 Coming out of the temple, the disciples are impressed by the size of the stones. They are impressed by the size of the buildings. Jesus is less than impressed. Jesus promises that one day, stone will not stay upon stone. That disturbs Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They want to know…
Mark 12:28-44 This passage comes after 2 passages about Pharisees and Sadducees asking their pet questions to Jesus (Render unto Caesar and Resurrection). Following his answers, this scribe comes with his question. Like the two prior questions, it is a sort of test. What the scribe has in mind exactly, we don’t know. Regardless of the scribe’s motivation, Jesus has…