Mar 20
On the one hand, there is nothing more universal and instinctive than prayer. Everyone, regardless of their spiritual maturity, throws up a prayer in time of need. People who never think about God at all still instinctively and reflexively pray in times of need. When tragedy strikes a high school, even the newscasters will say …
Mar 15
Here is where the water hits the wheel. I have already written several articles on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and about His temple sermon as delivered in Mark 11. Up until now, my focus has been on why Jesus was unhappy with the Jews of His day in light of how the …
Mar 14
Jesus’ temple sermon in Mark 11 was enough to astonish the people and anger the religious leaders, and once we read the parallel temple sermon of Jeremiah, we can see why. Jeremiah was prophesying the judgment of God upon Judah which happened in 586 BC, a judgment that had painful and real consequences. Remember, the …
Mar 13
It is nothing short of amazing and shocking to me to realize that three times in history, the Lord brought disaster upon the house that bore His name and the people who bore His name. He destroyed His house in Shiloh (see Jeremiah 7.12-15), Solomon’s temple in 586 BC, and Herod’s temple in 70 AD. …
Mar 12
All four gospel writers include the story of the triumphal entry and the cleansing of the temple, but they differ on how they incorporated the story of the fig tree. John does not include the encounter with the fig tree at all. Likewise, Luke omitted the encounter but included a parable that Jesus told about …
Mar 08
When Jesus was in Jerusalem for the last week of His earthly mission, one of the key moments was His “cleansing of the Temple.” While that title is the most often used to describe the event, it is hardly the most accurate. In a previous article, I noted the way Mark told the story. Mark …
Mar 07
The gospel writer Mark deliberately placed the story of Jesus cleansing the temple between the story of the cursing of the fig tree. Biblical scholars often refer to this as “interpolation,” a word which means “to insert between other things or parts.” As Mark tells the story, Jesus entered Jerusalem and went immediately to the …
Mar 06
The first thing that Jesus did after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was to enter the temple. On one hand, this was probably nothing more than location, location, location. By that I mean, if He entered Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which seems most likely, then He would have entered through the East Gate …
Daily Bible Readings
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