Paradox is not a deficiency in Jesus’s teaching — it is a deliberate strategy. When truth stands on its head, it demands attention that straightforward assertion does not. The paradoxes of the New Testament are not puzzles for the uncommitted; they are invitations to the kind…
The first gospel sermon was preached to an audience that had more personal connection to the events of the gospel than any audience since. They were eyewitnesses or near-witnesses of the birth, the ministry, the crucifixion, and the reports of the resurrection. Peter preached by the…
Moses chose poorly by the world’s calculation — forfeiting wealth, honor, pleasure, and safety for suffering with a despised people. The results of that choice, measured from eternity, are the most spectacular biography in human history. The question the sermon presses is not what Moses chose…
Neglect is not the absence of wrong action — it is the presence of a sin. The man who knows his duty and does not do it has sinned; the church that knows its obligations and ignores them is guilty. The hearer who has heard the…
James’s one sentence — “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14) — contains within it both the greatest urgency and the most clarifying perspective…
Jeremiah’s word stands over every human plan: “It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” The honest acknowledgment of limitation is not weakness — it is the first movement of wisdom. Pride is constitutionally blind to limitation. It is the nature of pride…
Jesus is the supreme example of loyalty — to truth, to his disciples, to the church, and to God. Every form of his loyalty cost something. The call to follow him is a call to the same costly faithfulness. Peter’s instruction — “For you have been…
Of all rulers in history, none has exercised authority as absolute as Jesus Christ — and none has used that authority with such perfect kindness. His lordship admits no rivals, no revisions, and no neutral parties. The title “dictator” is deliberately provocative. In the modern ear…
Jesus was “a man of sorrows” — and he was also a man of deep, unshakable joy. The New Testament does not present these as contradictions. It presents them as dimensions of the same great soul. The church has a long tradition of depicting Jesus primarily…
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places” (John 14:1-2). Jesus said that on the night He was betrayed, to people who were about to watch everything they thought they understood fall…