A Prayer to Prepare for Easter
This is a guest post from my good friend and colleague Dr. Randy Millwood, Church Services Consultant for the Maryland/Delaware Baptist Convention, FBC Frederick member, and best Real-Beard Santa Claus in the world. He wrote it as an email to the ministers of BCMD for Maundy Thursday, but it speaks to our situation on this Holy Weekend and so I offer it to you, with the necessary alterations, to help you in your preparation for Resurrection Day. In the Christian calendar, the Thursday of Holy Week is...
A Maundy Thursday Prayer (Psalm 88)
Despair is difficult when the Resurrection hovers nearby. For two millennia the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection have been told and retold, celebrated and feted. Everyone knows how the story ends. It doesn’t end with “It is finished.” Rather, with “”Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but has been raised.” It’s difficult, therefore, to read the Passion–the betrayal, the arrest, the beating, the mocking, the...
The Relevant Temptation
The other day our son Austin asked Pam and me if we had ever gone through anything like the COVID-19 pandemic before. The answer, of course, was no. These are unprecedented times. People are fearful, anxious. Angry. Some are complacent. Some are in denial. We are isolating ourselves from each other. If ever we needed a word from God, it is now. As one who weekly speaks to people about God, on behalf of God, and maybe, every once in awhile, delivers a word from God, I feel the weight of that need to hear...
You Don’t Learn Wisdom From a Book Like Proverbs
Let’s talk about the Book of Proverbs. Hey, wait, where are you going? Get back here! Sheesh, hear me out for a second. I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but hang on, I’m gonna bring on the excitement in a minute. Well, no, probably not, but hang with me for a second anyway. The Book of Proverbs has been called “God’s Instruction Book for Life,” which sounds awesome. Not content with that pithy title, another person said, “Proverbs is actually a book of instructions on how to live a life pleasing...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jan 14, 2016 | 0 comments
Why in the world would anyone recommend that we should seek to be spiritually poor? I’m intrigued by the many interpretations of Jesus’ first Beatitude (“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”—Matthew 5:3) that present spiritual poverty as necessary to salvation. This line of interpretation presents “poor in spirit” as a deep sense of humility or even spiritual despair that...
Do I Want to Be Poor in Sp...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 17, 2015 | 0 comments
The incarnation of Christ isn’t very realistic. Certain details in the Christmas story, for instance: Angels appearing in dreams. Angels appearing in person. A star hovering over one little house in one tiny village. An infertile older woman getting pregnant. A young virgin getting pregnant. God becoming a baby. Really? It’s all rather unbelievable. It’s not realistic. Things don’t happen like that in the...
The Incarnation Is Really ...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 7, 2015 | 0 comments
“Do not be afraid.” Three times in Luke’s birth narrative an angel appears to people, and these are their first words. It’s understandable; I’d be freaked out if an angel appeared to me and started talking, especially if “the glory of the Lord shone round about them,” as it did with the Bethlehem shepherds. Luke tells us that they were terrified. Who wouldn’t be? We understand their fear, but when...
Christmas Fear
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 2, 2015 | 7 comments
When did Bethlehem become the “city of David”? That title had always been given to Jerusalem. Forty times in the Old Testament Jerusalem is referred to as the city of David, and no other city in the Bible is ever called by that name. Until Luke’s gospel. “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and...
Bethlehem: City of David?
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Nov 26, 2015 | 0 comments
One day Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he is approached by ten men who had a highly contagious skin condition known back then as leprosy. They approached him but kept their distance. This was because for a long time leprosy was thought to be highly contagious. We know now that it isn’t. If what the ten men had was highly contagious, it wasn’t leprosy; if it was leprosy, it wasn’t highly...
The One Unchosen
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Nov 9, 2015 | 0 comments
Interpreting Scripture is a wonderfully complicated endeavor because the Bible is a complex compilation of literature. Interpretation is art and science. It’s a craft that takes many years to learn and is never mastered. Beware those who claim to have mastered it. It’s rarely biblical scholars who make such a claim. In fact, they admit all the time that they don’t always know what they are talking about....
When the Bible “Clea...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Nov 4, 2015 | 4 comments
There is a story in the Bible about a woman who is caught having illicit sexual relations outside of marriage. The charge is undeniable, the guilt unquestionable, and the penalty indisputable: death. And thus she is condemned. But in an odd and surprising twist, her accuser and the man with whom the non-marital sex occurred was found to be at least as guilty as she—actually, more culpable. In the end,...
Tamar and Being Caught in ...
recent from Blog
recent from Blog
Welcome!
I am a lifelong student of the Bible, and have been a pastor for over twenty-five years. My desire through this blog is to help people see things in the intersection of Scripture and real life that they might have missed. The careless handling of the Bible is causing a lot of problems in our churches and our culture--and is literally turning people away from the church, and, sometimes, God. I hope to treat Scripture with the respect it deserves, and, even if you don't agree with what I say, give you some insight.
Feel free to leave a comment. I promise to respond to you. All I ask is that you be respectful in your comments. 
Connect with Me