“I can truly say, that I bear you upon my heart and in my prayers. I have rejoiced to see the beginning of a good and gracious work in you. And I have confidence in the Lord Jesus, that He will carry it on and complete it and that you will be amongst the number of those who shall sing redeeming love to eternity. Therefore fear none of the things appointed for you to suffer by the way. But gird up the loins of your mind, and hope to the end. Be not impatient, but wait humbly upon the Lord. You have one hard lesson to learn, that is, the evil of your own heart. You know something of it, but it is needful that you should know more. For the more we know of ourselves, the more we shall prize and love Jesus and His salvation. I hope what you find in yourself by daily experience will humble you, but not discourage you: humble you it should, and I believe it does. Are not you amazed sometimes that you should have so much as a hope, that, poor and needy as you are, the Lord thinketh of you? But...

No matter what way you slice it, our definition of success is different than God’s definition of success. The problem that we run into with success, as with many other areas, is that we seem to lay our definitions over God’s Word. As churches, we often turn to different gimmicks to get some type of visible results, while the scriptures are clear that God will and is building His church. (Matthew 16:18) As individuals, we are constantly seeking steps into a so called ‘victorious’ Christian life, and quickly forget how Christ measures success in this life. CS Lewis emphasized this when he said, “It is not [our] business to succeed.” 1 This increasingly true with those that would proclaim that we can live a “victorious Christian life” over sin and become what is deemed a Spirit-filled Christian. While the fact of the matter is that this concept is not only foreign to scripture but has disastrous effects on the lives of believers. This mindset will inevitably lead to one of two desti...

I don’t know how many grew up in the same way that I did but being typical boys me and my brothers would take sticks to about any plants that we could find in the forest behind our house. Obviously, this was the responsibility of an 8 and 10-year-old, right? Thankfully, Jesus is not like 10-year-old me, but even more thankfully He is not like many in the churches of our day. While likely with genuine intentions, many take it upon themselves to root out the problems that they perceive in the church. If they see weakness, we need to get it out post haste, right? Well not necessarily. Jesus gives us a parable about the wheat and the tares to help illustrate something that we need to understand. (Matthew 13:24-30) In this parable we find a group of eager servants that have discovered that the enemy has sown tares, or weeds, in with the wheat. These servants run to the master and are willing and ready to go pull up these weeds from the field, but the master gives them what may seem like...

The apologetic and rhetorical function of Luke 24 can is summed up by the understanding that, “Luke's use of the Old Testament is best summed up as a prophetic and Christological use—all of the Scriptures point to Jesus and must be fulfilled by him”. [1] This prophetic and Christological explanation of the scripture that this couple of disciples knew was the whole point of Jesus conversation with them on the Road to Emmaus. It is said that beginning with Moses, or the Torah and following the paths through the prophets He interpreted the scriptures to them those things that were about him. (Luke 24:27) Ultimately, we can see this same apologetic theme played out again and again in the book of Acts, Luke sequel to his gospel. Peter walks through the scripture of the Old Testament showing Christ (Acts 2:14-41), Stephen does the same before the Pharisees (Acts 6), and Philip will preach Christ from Isaiah to the Ethiopian Eunuch. These accounts of Jesus throughout the Jewish scri...

If we are going to understand discipleship in Mark, we must first understand what it means to be a disciple. The first time we find disciple (mathētḗs) ion Mark, is in chapter two. The word here means a learner or a pupil of someone.  It is said that in early Jewish writings the description of a disciple, or learner, was one who would  “cover himself in the dust of [the rabbi’s] feet”.  This basically meaning that one would follow the words and actions of their teacher so closely that the dust stirred up by them would cover their follower. So, what was it that Jesus did? The first teachings that we find from Jesus is that of the good news of the gospel. Jesus begins His ministry on earth by preaching that we should repent and believe the gospel. (Mark 1:15) This proclamation is the lesson that we should take if we are to be disciples of Christ. The first instance of the twelve going out, this is exactly what they are commanded. (Mark 6:12) Even later in the book of Acts t...