Podcast: Gospel in Life

The friendship between Jonathan and David is rightly famous. Because we have so much information about the life of David, the narrative arcs are long. So to follow David’s friendship with Jonathan, you have to see it over multiple passages. We’re going to look at four passages in 1 Samuel to see what the Bible…

Who is Jesus? In Mark 2 and 3, Jesus makes a claim about himself that’s so immense it almost defies categories.  In this text, two incidents are detailed and they both have to do with how we observe the Sabbath day. To understand the magnitude of Jesus’ claim here, we have to unpack the meaning…

In this unparalleled text in the Bible, we learn not so much what the church does, but what the church is. We’ve been looking at the animating gospel principles that have profoundly shaped our church’s life in the city and service to the city. And that often means we’ve looked at something the church does….

In The Bride of Frankenstein movie, the monster stumbles into a blind man’s cottage, and they become friends. The only humanity he ever develops is in that cottage, where a person grabs him by the hand and calls him friend. And what it’s saying is that there’s nothing more humanizing than friendship and there’s no…

For centuries this famous passage has been called the parable of the prodigal son. But it’s a great mistake to think it’s a story about one son. It’s a story of two sons, of a younger and an older brother. If you don’t compare and contrast the two, you’re going to miss the radical message. …

We’re looking at the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.  After his resurrection, Jesus is still teaching his disciples—and us—preparing us to go out into the world and represent him. And in John 21, he teaches the disciples four things that should be true of us if we’re Christians. Another way to put it is four marks…

In our times, friendship is relatively ignored. Every other kind of love, every other kind of relationship is a hot topic. Everybody is writing about romance or family, while friendship is seen as uninteresting. And yet, friendship is absolutely vital. Do you understand how crucial it is to make, find, maintain, and develop friendships?  Let…

There are two typical approaches to work today, and both of them are wrong. Both of them cut right against what God meant work to be. One approach says, “Work is a curse—something to be endured for a paycheck.” The other approach says, “Work is my way to find self-esteem through achievement.” But the Bible,…

Abraham is a lot like many of us, who are not from where we now live. We’ve been brought somewhere from elsewhere. Abraham is the same. Abraham left his home community and became an exile. The Bible tells us repeatedly in the New Testament that each of us should see ourselves as exiles. We should…

Hebrews is written to people who had suffered a great deal of persecution and difficulty. They were getting discouraged. Some of them were saying, “What good is this Christianity? We’re good people. Why are such bad things happening to us?” The writer is showing them that they have resources as Christians such that they can…