We have to understand what God is talking about in Exodus 21 when he gave Israel rules for slaves. It was completely different from what we know from our own American history, and the word the Lord used in Exodus referred more to hired servants than to slaves. The horrors of involuntary slavery that is part of the shame of our past and that still exists in many places in the world today is never c...  Read More

We need the power of the Holy Spirit if we are going to raise the dead. Wait, what? You may be thinking this pastor has slipped over the edge, writing such sensational nonsense. The truth is, I have never raised anyone from the dead, at least none who were not breathing anymore and whose bodies had turned gray and cold. But I have seen dead people come to life. Think about it this way. Do you know...  Read More

Can an orange tree that never produces fruit call itself an orange tree? I mean, with a straight face. Neither can a church call itself a church if it is not about the business of producing disciples of Jesus Christ. The church exists to pursue God and to live righteous lives in community with other believers. If we are doing that, then two things happen. We will produce disciples of Jesus Christ....  Read More

We were created for God. To know him, to love him, to worship him. And to proclaim his glory, to make him known to others. But based on the billboards we see on the highways, and the ads we see on TV and on the internet, it seems we were really created for the newest, the shiniest, the coolest, the most exciting. One pastor called it, “The Cult of the Next Thing.” He said, “The cult’s central mess...  Read More

The ninth commandment says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The first application is in the courtroom, where truthful witnesses are essential to the cause of justice. But the second application is in the culture, in our everyday lives. What are some ways we break this commandment and therefore do not love our neighbors as we love ourselves?The first is slander. Avoiding i...  Read More

A woman walked into a butcher’s shop years ago and told the man she needed a fryer for supper. He was glad because he only had one chicken left to sell and was glad to get rid of it. He pulled it out of the ice and put it on the scale. “Two and a half pounds,” he said. “Hmm, I really need one a little bigger,” she said. So the butcher took the bird off the scale, rummaged it around in the ice behi...  Read More

Just as Jesus did with 6th commandment, “You shall not murder,” he did with the 7th commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” He broadened the power and the applications of each one. He showed us that all the commandments are inside-out, speaking not just to our words and actions but also to our hearts. Jesus showed us the root of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it wa...  Read More

My understanding of the cross was expanded recently by Jeremy Treat, who said, “When I look to Scripture, I see that you can’t understand the kingdom apart from the cross and you can’t understand the cross apart from the kingdom. And it’s Christ himself who holds those together. He is the King who goes to the cross in establishing his kingdom and ransoming us into it. In this kingdom, the throne i...  Read More

The ten commandments are inside-out.  They deal with the heart as much as they deal with actions or words. The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” is no different, and it was Jesus who raised the bar. He said this in the Sermon on the Mount:“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone...  Read More

The fifth commandment is, “Honor your father and your mother.” Or, as God says in Leviticus, “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.” God gets heavy with us in this command. That’s what the Hebrew word for honor means. Heavy. Weighty. It is the same word the Old Testament uses to speak of the glory of God, and of the weight of divine majesty and authority that He has. So to honor...  Read More

I wonder which of the Ten Commandments is violated most often, even by those who know Jesus? I would guess the fourth commandment is near the top. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” I am just thinking of the sheer numbers of people who say they follow Jesus but do not gather with a local expression His body. Or the people who belong to God but work every day of the week. Or if they don’t...  Read More

The third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” could be paraphrased, “You shall not lift up the name of the Lord your God into nothingness.” There are many ways we can do this, and perhaps the most obvious one is with profanity. When God saves, He begins the process of sanctification, often dealing with the “big sins” first. When I trusted Christ as a teenager, I...  Read More