Do Not Be Afraid

Below is a repost of a popular and timely piece I wrote a few short years ago. Perhaps it will encourage you this weekend, too: Someone that I have known for many years told me that she felt afraid as she thinks about the future and what the implications of past sin are for the READ MORE

Things Needful for Personal Healing

In the throes of helping the hurting, a handful of things have come to mind throughout the years that help move a person confronted with the reality and gravity of sin toward a place of healing and wholesomeness. Perhaps these will be helpful for you or someone you know: There needs to be recognition of READ MORE

Values for the Disciple

Mark 7:31-37 offers a striking moment in which to grapple with some important values for every disciple of Jesus. To begin with, consider the story, as told from Mark’s perspective: Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they READ MORE

Legitimizing the Lord

Tucked tightly between the passage about Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand and the calling of the twelve apostles is a seemingly modest account of a great crowd coming to Jesus for physical healing. Read carefully what Mark has penned about this particular moment in Jesus’ remarkable life: Jesus withdrew with his disciples READ MORE

Doing Good; Planning Harm

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on READ MORE