'Peter' Tagged Posts (Page 3)
SPIRITUAL TUCK-POINTING
A fair number of years ago we tuck-pointed our church building. Expansion and contraction over the years amid the changing seasons had taken their toll, weakening the mortar between the bricks. Without a total restoration of the mortar, things would have crumbled. Bricks would have fallen out. The building would have fallen apart. The same sort of thing can happen spiritually. Long years of careless neglect in hearing God’s word, and sad attempts to weather the storms of life without…
“UNLESS I WASH YOU…”
Remember that scene in the Upper Room? Without saying a word, Jesus gets up, lays aside His outer garment, wraps a towel around His waist, pours water into a basin, kneels down and starts to wash the dirty feet of His disciples. It was servant’s work, the customary washing of dusty feet done in those days by the host or by one of his servants. There is a thick and heavy silence – until Jesus comes to Peter who blurts…
“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST…”
In the 24th chapter of Exodus, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, Moses splashes ”the blood of the covenant” on the people of Israel. He thus foreshadows both the finished work of Christ for us and also the fellowship of Christ with us. Then, in a scene unlike anything else in the Old Testament, except for the visions of Ezekiel, Moses and Aaron, and Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, along with the seventy elders of Israel, ascend the mountain. …
“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN…”
A theologian about a hundred years ago once said, “Take away the aroused conscience and you might just as well turn the churches into dance halls.” In other words, if people are no longer troubled by their sins, if they no longer wonder what might happen to them if they die, if they no longer consider the wrath and punishment of God, then people will see no purpose for the church at all. This is the attitude of today’s “nones”…
LESSONS FROM THE TRANSFIGURATION
On this Sunday before the start of the Lenten season, the Church has always tipped its hat to the account of Christ’s transfiguration. The Gospel of Matthew says that Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain by themselves. “There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.” There are several lessons in…
THE REAL ANTI-SEMITISM
Ever since the horrors of the Holocaust during World War II, the world has been given to see how ugly hatred can become. Hitler and his henchmen targeted the Jews for extermination in places that reek of blood, tears and torture. Names such as Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald make us shudder. This attempted genocide of an entire race or ethnic group – the Jews – was the ultimate in anti-semitism. The apostle Paul was a Jew, “a Hebrew of the…
“OOH….AAH”
To only two people did Jesus ever say: “Great is thy faith.” One of them was a Gentile solider who beseeched Jesus on behalf of his sick servant. The other was a Canaanite woman who chased after Jesus, begging only for the crumbs from the Master’s table Why should a foreign soldier, who had no Jewish roots, believe in a Messiah who was rejected by His own countrymen who should have recognized their Savior? Why should a Gentile woman understand…
THE HOLY SPIRIT’S GIFT – THE HOLY BIBLE
How’s your memory of everything you said or heard last year? Have you ever wondered how the evangelists and apostles could remember all the things God wanted them to remember as they wrote the New Testament Scriptures? Jesus answers this in our Gospel lesson in John 14: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” The New Testament is…
“TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH”
The Acts Of The Apostles falls neatly into two parts. Chapters 1-12 deal with the start of the early church in Jerusalem as it radiates outward. The apostle Peter is the prominent figure in these early chapters. Chapters 13-28 deal almost exclusively with the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles through the missionary journeys of the apostle Paul. These chapters of Acts are the flesh and blood background of the 13 epistles (letters) of the New Testament which Paul wrote…
“FEET FIRMLY PLANTED IN MID-AIR”
“I can see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin,” says Peter to a sorcerer named Simon in this morning’s chapter from Acts. It’s a moral judgment. Period. Some things are sinful and some things are not. Some things are moral and some things are not. Some things are right and some things are wrong. If there is no sin, the Son of God entered our world for no good reason and died for even less. Some…
PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
Our week by week journey through The Acts of the Apostles brings us to the third chapter. By the Savior’s power Peter heals a lame man at the gate of the temple. It brings to mind Christ’s own miracles of healing on the pages of the four Gospels. The Gospels portray a beautiful scene. In the haunting, red rays of the setting sun, when the Sabbath is officially over, the multitudes gather at the door of Simon Peter’s house from…
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO KING DAVID
In one of those slam dunk moments, Jesus quizzes the Pharisees: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” “Piece of cake,” they imply. “The Son, that is the Descendant, of David.” Any Jew with two brain cells functioning knew this. When Messiah, the Christ, finally came, He would be a Descendant from the family tree of Israel’s greatest king, King David. God had promised David an everlasting king on an everlasting throne in an everlasting kingdom…