Heads Up

As soon as we talk about good in every situation or personal sacrifice in a specific situation, we tend to relax, assuming that we are off the hook and that the disturbing radical nature of true Christian discipleship does not affect us – this is a false conclusion. It is true that Jesus may never…

Another would-be disciple in Matthew 8 was a man who said he wanted to follow Jesus, but only after he had first met his family obligations. He wanted to bury his father. Jesus’ answer was, “Follow me, and leave the dead bury their own dead.”

It is not unusual to hear Christians talk about Jesus as Lord and that this title should be acknowledged by His followers. But many otherwise well-intentioned but erring Christians believe it is possible to have Jesus as Savior without having Him as Lord and even go so far as to maintain that “lordship salvation,” as…

We need to go back to the miracle stories (Matthew 8) and look at them not as simple stories about Jesus’ ability to make sick people well – people who have viewed the stories in this way have sometimes mistakenly believed that the New Testament teaches all Christians have the right to perfect health –…

The second miracle in Matthew 8 is another story of a healing, but it adds two elements not present in the first story. First, it is about a Roman centurion, which means it is about a Gentile. This indicates that the Gospel Jesus was preaching is for the entire world and not for Jewish people…

Why Jesus does not heal. Anyone who takes time to compare the four Gospels, especially the first three, the Synoptic Gospels, will notice two things about their arrangement of material. First, there is a rough chronological order. Each tells about Jesus’ baptism by John somewhere at the beginning; proceeds with accounts of Christ’s public teaching…