February of 1996. I was 26 years old. I had been a youth minister for 8 years. Full-time for 4. The youth had all gotten together for my birthday and given me $$ to go skydiving (on my bucketlist of things to do). My Pastor, Mike Mathews, (He is now my Father-in-Law) was organizing a…
Category: Bible
Playing in the Dirt
Lately I’ve been reading a book called “Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus.” So far, it’s a great book – all about the Jewishness of Jesus and the insights that come to the Scriptures when you understand Jewish culture. I’m loving it!!! (I’m hoping to write a blog later about the things I’m learning…
Jesus in the Passover – Maundy Thursday
I had the pleasure of leading our congregation through a Seder/Passover meal a couple of years ago. I put together a little booklet called a “Haggadah“ to explain the symbolism behind each element of the meal. I made the booklet into a slide show for anyone interested. I’d encourage everyone to step through it and…
Pagan Christianity
“Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna is an interesting read. I read it a few months ago, and quite honestly, I’ve been wrestling with it ever since. I haven’t blogged or posted anything, ’cause I simply don’t know what to think. The book is written to describe the origins of many of our…
Consistently Emmanuel
“Emmanuel” – This name for God is always popular around Christmas because it means, “God with us.” It makes sense that people would remember Him with this name during this time of year since Christmas is a celebration of Jesus coming to earth – God being present with us. I’ve been studying Joshua quite a…
Exodus & Matthew
We started studying Matthew last night in small group and I noticed something I never really saw before. I knew that Matthew was written to new converts from Judaism in an attempt to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. Because of that, Matthew uses lots of Jewish phrases and he approaches the story of Jesus…
Prideful Paul
I always thought it was a bit prideful of Paul to write things like – “follow my example” (1 Cor 11:1) and “join with others in following my example” (Php 3:17). Anyway, he says things like this throughout Scripture and it always bothered me a little, but last night in our small group it came…
John Commentary
Well, I’ve finally finished this process. We have been through the entire book of John with our students and I have typed up my notes. I have attached them here for anyone who would like to have my thoughts on these verses. I’m sure that over time I could add or change quite a bit…
John 17 Commentary
Vs 1 – It is interesting to note that Jesus looked up to heaven as He prayed. This was common posture for prayer during His day. Vs 3 – "Eternal life" is not defined by merely prolonged life, but by the quality of life which is found only in a relationship with God. Also notice…
John 14-16 Commentary
John 14 Commentary Vs 2 – Jesus paints a picture of a groom going to prepare a place for his bride. The custom was for a Jewish man to go home and build an addition onto his Father’s house once he got engaged. It usually took about a year, but the groom could not go…