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 Dec 30, 2014 | 2 comments
In Genesis 3, the Man and the Woman eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, even though they had been warned that “in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:17). That’s a pretty specific warning. It specifies 1) what they are and aren’t supposed to do; 2) what will happen if they disobey; and 3) when those consequences will occur. Very specific. If you eat, you will die, and you...
“You Won’t Die...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 25, 2014 | 2 comments
A Message Delivered on Christmas Eve, 2014 When you read the gospels it is evident that the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke aren’t the same. That’s because Matthew and Luke aren’t interested in telling what happened, but what it means. Matthew says everything he wants to say with Magi, and Luke says everything he wants to say with shepherds, but John—well, for John to be able to say what he wants to...
Impossible
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 24, 2014 | 0 comments
It is back around 732 B.C.E. and Ahaz is king of Judah. He’s just a young man in his early twenties, but he was surrounded by some older advisors, among them the prophet Isaiah. Assyria is a rising power and is threatening the nations of the eastern Mediterranean coast. The kings of Syria and Israel, who stand between Judah and Assyria, have formed an alliance and are trying to get Judah to join them. The...
Christmas Faith
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 22, 2014 | 0 comments
“‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’” God is with us. After a few hundred years, the Israelites of the first century had to be wondering. It was a period of defeat, exile, occupation, and extreme brutality, made worse by the fact that there was no prophecy. Prophets were the human voice of God, and their absence...
Letting “Emmanuel...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 18, 2014 | 0 comments
The birth narrative in Matthew is found in the first chapter, but it doesn’t begin with the story of Joseph and Mary. We begin there; we like to skip the boring parts and get right to the interesting parts. Matthew actually begins the birth narrative with a genealogy, but who reads those? You can’t pronounce half the names anyway. Admit it, you usually skip over the genealogy to get to the good stuff....
Kings and Harlots: A Genea...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 17, 2014 | 0 comments
There’s a story in the 11th chapter of Genesis that tells how humans tried to go where God was. It’s actually the culmination of a series of stories in which humans try to take for themselves prerogatives that belong only to God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wanted to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Then Cain decided to take upon himself the decision which belonged only to...
Heaven and Earth, Towers a...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Dec 15, 2014 | 0 comments
In which gospel does the innkeeper tell Mary and Joseph that he has no rooms available for them? Trick question; Luke simply writes that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. No innkeeper is ever mentioned. But what if there wasn’t even an inn? Kenneth E. Bailey, in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, makes a convincing case that the inn...
No Inn, But Plenty of Room...
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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.
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