Holy Week Guide | Thursday

Holy Week Guide | Thursday

Bread and wine were two common items at Jewish dinner. But this was no ordinary dinner. This was the Passover meal and Jesus was sharing it with his disciples, his betrayer at the table. This was a meal rich with imagery of a past salvation and yet pointed to a newer and deeper one. The Passover meal commemorated the Exodus, God’s miraculous rescue of his people from Egypt. He delivered them out of slavery and into life and freedom.

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Holy Week Guide | Wednesday

Holy Week Guide | Wednesday

Jesus’ life is swiftly moving to its climax. The time of the Passover feast is a couple of days away. The significance of the timing could not be greater. The Passover was an annual Jewish feast which commemorated their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The original Passover involved the sacrifice of a lamb without spot or blemish. The blood of the lamb was placed on the doorposts and lintels of the house so that the angel of death (the final plague sent by God on the firstborn of Egypt) would “pass over” the house. It is at this current feast of Passover that Matthew tells us of the chief priests and scribes seeking to kill Jesus, the Lamb of God.

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Holy Week Guide | Tuesday

Holy Week Guide | Tuesday

On this day of Holy Week, Jesus was teaching in the temple and a group of Jewish leaders approached him to continue their attempts to “entangle him in his words” and end his impact among “their” people. They asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar…?” A precisely calculated question and one that the leaders were sure was going to finally rid them of this “blasphemous” menace. In those days the Pharisees had vilified the ruling authority and taught the people, through oral tradition, that it was “sinful” to give them any respect at all, even paying taxes.

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Holy Week Guide | Monday

Holy Week Guide | Monday

A passage like this calls us into question – have we perhaps profaned the worship of God? Are we so different from the scribes and chief priests? After all, our own heart is a breeding ground for idolatry, substituting the one mediator – Jesus for a lesser good, a lesser object. The cleansing of the temple is a reminder that Jesus is our temple, that we come to God through no other means than him, and that we must, in faith, expect him to supply our every need. Expectancy has everything to do with faith. John Calvin said, “To have faith in God means, to expect, and to be fully assured of obtaining from God whatever we need.”

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Holy Week Guide | Palm Sunday

Holy Week Guide | Palm Sunday

After three and a half years of public ministry, Jesus’ time on earth is drawing to a close as we join this passage in Matthew 21. Jesus instructs a couple of His disciples to go ahead of Him and procure a donkey’s colt that He might enter Jerusalem one last time. This act will fulfill yet another Old Testament prophecy of his identity as Messiah! Zechariah 9:9 (ESV) declares:

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The Reformation – 500 Years Later

The Reformation – 500 Years Later

October 31st marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I hope I didn’t lose you on that sentence. Perhaps you are saying, “Things that happened 500 years ago are history (school/boring), and those other words are long and capitalized. Are you going to give me a history lesson using big words I have to Google?” No (Well, maybe). The Protestant Reformation was simply a movement to address corruption in the Church. Five hundred years ago, there were only two kinds of churches—there had been only one church split in the entire history of the church! One church dominated Europe and it was not pretty. There was political corruption, moral decay, and doctrinal error...

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Acquiring a Taste for God

Acquiring a Taste for God

When Jesus begins his ministry on earth, he does not go to a posh retreat center, or a pastor’s conference. He goes to the desert. He goes to a dry and weary land where there is no water or food. Now as the eternal Son of God, he is able to create food out of nothing, and as a fully flesh and blood human being, he desperately wants to eat. Satan is quick to point this out, “Hey man, you’re the Son of God! You are surrounded by stuff you could turn into bread. Why not just transubstantiate yourself up some waffles?” Jesus’s answer to Satan gives us the meaning of fasting: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Jesus’s soul was satisfied by the Father. Jesus prepares himself for ministry by honing that desire...

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