Today’s passage: Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:1–9, Luke 9:28–36, and John 12:27–30 Focus verse: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5) Yesterday’s passage ended with the puzzling statement that “some of you present won’t experience death before you see me coming in my kingdom” (Matthew […]
Avoid the Error of Balaam Although many of the mentions in the Bible of Balaam are negative, in the primary account of him, he seems to basically be a good, God-fearing guy. His issue is syncretism, which is the error of Balaam. Balaam’s issue wasn’t his connection with God, but instead his attempt to meld […]
Today’s passage: 1 John 3:21–24 Focus verse: And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. (1 John 3:23) John teaches us that if we have a clear conscience before God, we can be confident that we’ll receive from him whatever we […]
We Should Continue to Remember the Poor The Bible talks about the poor and teaches how to deal with poverty. Poverty shows up 21 times in the Bible, most in the practical advice-giving book of Proverbs. The word poor appears much more often at 176 times. Combined, these passages give us much insight in how […]
Learn More about 52 Churches Discover more in the 52 Churches infographic to see key insights and data about the churches my wife and I visited in a year as covered in my book 52 Churches . Click on the above image to get a better look or download your own copy of the 52 Churches infographic. Whether or […]
We’ll Bypass Visiting This Church (For Now) So far, we’ve visited twelve churches. With one exception—a spiritual community that wasn’t exclusively Christian—we’ve faithfully attended every church on our list, according to their distance from home. As our journey continues, we’ll skip some to maximize the breadth of our experience. The first church we’re skipping is […]
Today’s passage: Matthew 16:21–28, Mark 8:31–38, Luke 9:21–26, and John 12:23–26 Focus verse: Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem . . . be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Matthew 16:21) We open our Lenten devotional with Jesus predicting his death. This is key. It confirms that […]
God Tells Moses to Count the Number of Men for the Army The book of Numbers opens with God telling Moses to take a census of the people. Numbers also ends with a census. These two numberings of the people serve as bookends for this section of Scripture, which is why we call it Numbers. […]
Today’s passage: 1 John 3:16–20 Focus verse: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:16) The ultimate expression of love is to die for another, to sacrifice ourselves for the good of someone […]
We Must Stand Firm Against Society’s Attacks on Marriage and Children As followers of Jesus, we need to reclaim what the Bible teaches about family. This is because the biblical ideal of family has taken a hit in today’s culture. Therefore, we must counter this and celebrate the family. Today’s secular society views marriage as […]