“Adam and Eve ate the first recorded meal in rebellion, which is to say, they rebelled against God by eating what was forbidden. And because of their actions, their sin; rebellion and sin have pervaded every relationship, event, thought, and part of creation since. So when we go from looking at humanity’s first meal to what has been called Jesus’ last supper, we again see our rebellion full strength. Adam and Judas share this in common; they betrayed their relationship with God, believing in their hearts that their way, their interpretation, their will was better than Almighty God’s…”

“Today we enter into the Passion of Jesus Christ. In our common English use, the word passion means intense desire, or an uncontrolled or barely controlled emotion, but in its original Latin, the root ‘passio’ means to suffer or to endure, therefore Christ’s Passion refers to his suffering rather than any impassioned desire…”

“Much has been said about the seeming contradiction put forward here: that only the father knows when he will send the son. Is Jesus not fully God? How then could he not know what he, in fact, does know? The false teaching of kenosis asserts that Jesus gave up his divine powers when he came to earth as helpless babe. That he emptied himself of his glory and omniscience and might. Taking Philippians 2:6-7 to a grotesque extreme. (Philippians 2:6-7 [Jesus] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.)…The truth is, these verses show how Jesus was willing to be emptied of his very life, in total obedience to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. But they never deny his full humanity nor his full deity. Some translations say he laid aside his might and glory through the incarnation. But remember the might of his miracles and how he did reveal his glory in specific moments such as the transfiguration or when he raised Lazarus from the dead…”

“Instead of worrying about how to prove our innocence, or defend against the maliciousness of slanderers and accusers, we are told instead to share the hope we have in Christ. And that’s playing a whole different ball game. It’s not fighting with the weapons of this world. It’s meeting persecution with joy, and opposition as opportunity; because every time it’s win-win. It’s a win if people are changed in the process of hearing the truth. And it’s a win if none are converted but the Good News is simply proclaimed. Church: God is glorified when his people give witness to his faithfulness, share generously of his provision, and praise him for his good salvation. And this is how God’s people will remain faithful and obedient until he comes or they are called home.”

“Church, this is the ultimate question, there is none greater: Who do you say this Jesus is? Who is the Christ? …Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (quoting C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

“Christian, the cross has freed you up, you have nothing else pressing. Because of Jesus, you can now love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Anything less shows you have not yet understood the grace and freedom you are now in. You are free now to fully obey and to love and to serve the Lord. If this is hard, your job is not to try harder, but to study the word and sit with God and his son more. Love cannot be forced, but when you know him more and more deeply, you will love him more and more deeply.”

“Now the piece you need to know, the block that’s missing in all this is that, besides denying the resurrection and angel and spirit, the Sadducees only believed that the books of Moses were authoritative, so just the Torah. Meaning they only looked to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy as scripture!…Christian, herein lies one of the biggest threats to the modern church. The dropping inconvenient verses, the constant shaping and reshaping of doctrine to suit what we as humans like, and the refusal to preach the whole gospel of God. And it’s rampant….Friends, itching ears have no problem finding smooth talking lips, for every group of people that just wanna hear easy soothing bible stuff, there are a dozen preachers and so called bible teachers ready to dole out such sap. And the world isn’t getting any better…”

“Our passage today is found right in the middle of this week in Jerusalem. Having been put in their place by the parable of the wicked tenants, the elites now send wave upon wave of their most intelligent representatives, their most adept thinkers to defeat Jesus in his understanding of the law. Mark chapter 3 tells us they just really wanna kill him, but I think it shows their pride and arrogance that they should want to intellectually humiliate him first. As in their day, and perhaps even now, the highest calling of Jewish wisdom was to be able to know the law and be able to defend it. So to all onlookers, it becomes no small thing that this formally uneducated man from the sticks of Galilee, would even engage the ruling’s lead lawyers, let alone best them at their zenith. But in the next three or four interactions that’s exactly how things play out. Jesus meets the Jewish leadership day after day, in unfair argument, and beats them on their own turf.”

“Here’s the crassest way I can put it: the rulers could no longer make money at the temple if John’s giving forgiveness away for free. The temple was already a pile of rubble, the custodians just didn’t know it yet…The old covenant systems had to be fully dismantled, because the coming Messiah would be bringing such a radically different covenant, that no structure from before could stand. And this Gospel is so beautiful…”