Living Between the Cups…which Passover Cup Jesus used at the Last Supper and What that Means for Us
When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper we are told that it was in the context of a Passover meal. Mark 14:12-18 says, 12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations […]
Reading the Bible Contextually – The Double Healing of Mark 8
I love reading scripture. I also love reading about how to read scripture better. As you read about the Bible and commentaries on Bible passages you become aware of more of the things that are going on in the text that never jumped out at you before. It pays to learn some of the techniques […]
Jesus in Context – One of the Most Helpful Biblical Background Books Around
I recently came across the most helpful resources on the historical backgrounds to the Gospels that I have ever seen. It is called Jesus in Context: Background Readings for Gospel Study by Darrell Bock. This book works through the synoptics and John and pulls just about any relevant extra-biblical text in full quotation to help you see […]
Two Questions that Are Essential For Discipleship
Last year we created an evangelistic study of Mark called Jesus 101. The study is designed to be used with seekers so that they can discover who Jesus is by studying Mark. Mark is the perfect book for that because it is a little bit of a mystery until chapter 8. At that point in […]
Matthew’s Explanation of the “Messianic Secret”
One of the big topics in the Gospel of Mark is what is known as the “Messianic Secret”. Over and over again in Mark, Jesus tells people not to tell others about who he is. This happens up until Mark 8 when Jesus asks his disciples who they think he is and Peter says he is […]
John The Baptist’s Baptism Was for the Forgiveness of Sins
You have undoubtedly heard that John the Baptist’s baptism was a baptism of repentance and that the difference between John’s baptism and Jesus’ baptism was that Jesus’ baptism took it a step further by adding the effect of the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). Well, was anyone even reading Mark 1:4? “And so John the […]
Finished A New Evangelistic Bible Study – Jesus 101
Update – I just posted the pdf in this post – Download Jesus 101 I just wrapped up writing an evangelistic Bible study that works through the Gospel of Mark called Jesus 101. The reason I wrote this was to promote more Bible study with non-Christians at Northwest. We realize on the front end that […]
Evangelistic Study of Mark
We are about to implement a better plan to increase the number of one-on-one Bible studies we are engaging in as a congregation. In doing so we are needing material to pull this off. So I have started writing an inductive study of Mark and it is really pretty exciting stuff. What I mean by […]
Jesus on Discipling Young Adults – Handing Over Responsibility
So far we have looked at two stories (here and here) in Mark 9 where we learned that Jesus used the shortcomings of his disciples to help them learn and grow through those mistakes. Now we are going to back up to the beginning of the chapter and look at another piece of how Jesus […]
Jesus on Discipling Young Adults – Enthusiasm and Patience
Often our greatest strengths in one situation can be our greatest weakness in another. I would like to think this is only true of others but I am guilty of it myself. I love to process things. I can analyze things to death. Sometimes that is a great strength because I am able to understand […]