Author: Pastor Steve (Page 32 of 48)

A true Church is a missionary Church. But why should the followers of Jesus Christ be involved in missions? There are at least four reasons: (1) the lost condition of the world; (2) the Great Commission; (3) the love of God working in us; (4) the many opportunities for advancing Christ’s kingdom. All four are in Matthew 9ff. Continue reading

The experiment in liberty and self-government known as the Unites States of America is premised upon an affirmation in liberty and human rights that only makes sense within and can only be sustained by a worldview that is based on at least an inherited Christian conception and an affirmation of natural rights. Continue reading

My mother was eighteen when she married my father; nineteen when I was born and twenty when they divorced. For a brief time, I had a step-father – he left my mother with three more children. Though very poor (I didn’t know it at the time), I had a wonderful childhood – yet all the time I longed in some respects to know my father, to have a father. Boy Scouts, sports, and Church provided some marvelous male examples and relationships for me. I would meet my father for the first time when I was eighteen, I took him to the ASU-UA football game. Continue reading

“And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of His garment.” Was it not desperation that drove this woman to Jesus too? The woman is nameless, but she is introduced as a desperate case since she “had suffered from bleeding for twelve years,” to which Luke also adds, “No one could heal her” (Luke 8.43). It is important to think about her condition since it so obviously illustrates our own desperate condition due to sin. Continue reading

Matthew records nine miracles in chapters 8-10. We first looked at these accounts largely as stories showing Jesus’ authority over sickness, just as chapters 5-7 focused on His authority as a teacher. But as we have progressed through these accounts, we have begun to see that they concern much more than physical healing. Continue reading

We have already seen the beginning of opposition in the story of the healing of the paralytic in Matthew chapter 9. The teachers of the law objected when Jesus forgave the paralyzed man of his sins, claiming that only God can forgive sins. They accused Him of blasphemy. In the continuation of the story of Matthew’s conversion and in the discussion about fasting that follows in verses 14–17, two more criticisms emerge. Continue reading