Toward the very end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he enters Jerusalem—knowingly headed to the Lamb’s slaughter. With less than a week of his mortal life remaining, would-be kings or rulers would not have spent their time with the least influential…
Come Back! The recipients of the letter to the Hebrews faced uncompromising pressure to compromise. Ridiculed for abandoning their own religious heritage and for extracting themselves from their very own people, these early followers of Christ anguished under tremendous pressures…
Read Matthew 5:6-10 God’s benediction rests on you (you’ll have true happiness) if you are pure in heart. This blessing is not bestowed upon the intellectually keen or emotionally pious, but on those pure or clean in heart. Like poor…
When my wife and I moved into our house in the early spring, the two trees in the back yard were charming, their trunks splitting and winding like strands of hair, their leaves just beginning to bud. From what we…
Read Matthew 5:6-9 One of the keys to the spreading of the gospel is to have believers who make a difference in life—and who live differently. There must be some moral distinctiveness if we are to impact the world around…
Read Matthew 5:4-5 The opening theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that those who mourn over their own impoverished ability are in Jesus’ kingdom. The Pharisees do not fit. This was radical—it was like telling all those who…
The Heart of the Insider Movement Paradigm Extreme practices of the Insider Movement Paradigm (IMP), like those missionaries who publicly convert to Islam in order to “reach” those in the mosque,[1] are rejected even by most IM advocates. But the…
Read Matthew 5:3-12 This first sermon in the first Gospel deserves the attention of all readers. In sum, the Sermon on the Mount is the constitution of the Christian’s life, desire, and character. Before we proceed to the Beatitudes, please…
Introduction Missions is not what it used to be, because the study of missions and missions theories, called missiology, has taken a life of its own. In recent years, the attention of the international Church has been turned to controversial…
The greatest threat to the Gospel in our age is not unbelief. It is not relativism or open hostility to the “narrow” Christian tradition. It is not even the hypocrisy of the church, which holds up the white banner of…
