Tag: bible

Luke 22: Jesus Instructions to His Disciples, and What “Greatness” Looks Like in the Kingdom

Right before Jesus is arrested, He gathers His disciples for final instructions. It is not a casual moment. The weight of the cross is near, betrayal is about to happen, and Satan is actively hunting for weaknesses. And yet, in Luke 22, you can still feel how easy it is for people to drift into the wrong priorities.

The disciples hear what is coming, but their minds are not fully awake. They start wrestling over who is the greatest. That is where Jesus meets them: not with harsh condemnation, but with teaching, correction, and a picture of what true greatness actually is.

Deuteronomy 16 and the Feast of Passover: Remembering Redemption Through Christ Our Passover

There is something both simple and serious about the Bible’s picture of worship. God does not tell His people to “go through the motions.” He gives feasts for a reason: to make the past unmistakably real, to train the present, and to point the future toward Christ.

In Deuteronomy 16 , Moses focuses on the Feast of Passover and how Israel is to remember God’s redemption from Egypt. But the deeper story does not stop in the Old Testament. The New Testament teaches that the Passover was always pointing toward something greater: Christ Himself . As Paul puts it, “Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Luke 22 and the Last Supper: The Covenant Shift from Passover to the Lord’s Table

In Luke 22, Jesus gathers His disciples for Passover, but the moment does not stay “old covenant” for long. What starts as a careful celebration in a crowded, tense Jerusalem turns into something new. Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper and, in doing so, makes a covenantal statement that reaches far beyond the supper table.

At the center of it all is a simple but weighty idea: new covenant members are people whose sins have been forgiven . The Lord’s Supper is not a repeat of Passover as if the old covenant pattern is still the framework. It is a new ordinance for a new covenant household – the household of faith.

Deuteronomy 15 – The Case Law for the Irresponsible Needy: How God Teaches Discipline and Liberty

God does not treat every kind of “need” the same way. That theme runs through Deuteronomy 14 and 15, and it matters because the church (and the modern state) often blur categories into one loud idea: “Help them” without any clear biblical method.

In Deuteronomy 15, God gives a specific case law for a particular kind of needy person: the able-bodied but irresponsible. The solution is not a vague donation, and it is not a system designed to create dependence. It is a structured way to bring discipline, work them toward restitution, and ultimately release them into freedom.

Deuteronomy 15:1-11 – God’s Law for the Needy

Deuteronomy 15 teaches a plain, practical, and merciful economy for a covenant people. It draws a careful distinction between two kinds of poverty and prescribes two different responses. One response is charity without expectation of repayment; the other is an interest-free, compassionate loan with the expectation of repayment. Both responses display mercy, but each fits a different need and both honor God’s wisdom about work, stewardship, and neighbor-love.

Deuteronomy 15 — God’s Law for the Needy: Gifts, Loans, and the Year of Release

Deuteronomy 15 teaches a plain, practical, and merciful economy for a covenant people. It draws a careful distinction between two kinds of poverty and prescribes two different responses. One response is charity without expectation of repayment; the other is an interest-free, compassionate loan with the expectation of repayment. Both responses display mercy, but each fits a different need and both honor God’s wisdom about work, stewardship, and neighbor-love.

Psalms 69 – Lessons from Suffering

Psalm 69 is kept in Scripture not as antiquarian reading but as practical instruction for how God’s people are to live through seasons of pain, rejection, and trial. Read two ways, it teaches two things at once: how suffering shapes a faithful soul (think David) and how suffering saves the world (think Jesus). Both perspectives are meant to form us—our prayers, our patience, our zeal, and our posture before God and our neighbors.

The Tithe Law: Worship, Stewardship, and the Care of God’s People

 The tithe law is not a relic of an agricultural past to be filed away with the rest of ancient ceremony. It is a deliberate, emphatic command that shapes how a people acknowledge God as owner and provider. The tithe law confronts our assumptions about money, tests our allegiance, and orders the church’s life so ministers and the needy are cared for. This is not abstract theology; it is practical worship translated into how we use what God entrusts to us.

Luke 21 – Jesus’ Prediction of the Destruction of Jerusalem

Jesus’ words in Luke 21:5-20 are rooted in a very particular moment: he stands in the temple during his final week, addressing people who can see the stones and splendor of that building with their own eyes. He warns them that what they admire will not stand. The question the people ask is simple and…

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Deuteronomy 14:1-21 – Dietary Laws – Theology of Holiness

God gave Israel the dietary laws to keep them separate from the gentile nations. Underlying the dietary laws is the theology of holiness. In this sermon, we will look at how these laws were necessary for the Old Covenant, but no longer required for the New Covenant. From a redemptive history perspective, the distinction between Jew and Gentile is not relevant. Under the New Covenant the distinction is made between those who are in Christ and those who are not in Christ. Christ has come to remove the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile; therefore, the dietary laws are no longer necessary.

Deuteronomy 14 — Dietary Laws and the Theology of Holiness

Deuteronomy 14 places two things side by side that at first glance feel unrelated: instructions about how Israel was to mourn the dead and a detailed list of what they could and could not eat. The organizing idea that ties these commands together is holiness — being set apart to the Lord. The laws are…

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