RoboPreacher

in the old king james version We’re going to spend a little time with the Old Testament . Time with the Bible is always well spent. For those of us who place our trust in Jesus, though, it is especially important to to familiarize ourselves with the Old Testament.  After all, Jesus was Jewish; he understood his mission in light of what we call the Old Testament (which, for him it was just called “the Bible”). Of course it all begins with Eden , God’s perfect creation. Not long into the story, though, Sin rears its ugly head, and Eden is lost . The rest of the story, is the story of God repairing creation; of God getting this world back to what was intended at Eden. To do this, God chooses a wandering Armenian; Abraham. You remember, “Father Abraham, had many sons; and many sons had father Abraham.” It turns out that, for no reason other than the God you worship is an electing God, God chooses Abraham for the project of restoration. And to do this, God makes ...

is all that you lack The Gospel according to St. Mark ! What is it that keeps you from Jesus? Have you even given the question much thought? Sadly, it seems that we all just take it for granted. We assume there’s this great chasm between us and Jesus and that’s just the way things are; and so our prayer life gets weaker, our devotion more feeble, our relationship with Jesus more strained… Worse than all that, though, is that if were even to entertain such a question; the answers we would come up with would be unlikely to provide any real assistance in getting us any closer to Jesus… Perhaps we would say our attendance at church could be better, maybe we would admit our giving could be a little more faithful, or possibly we’d confess that we could spend a little more time in prayer.  Now, on the other hand, maybe we’d point to some things we should be doing less of; like maybe there is some vice we know we ought to give up, possibly there’s some sin w...

what an awful price to pay The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark the 6th Chaper! He used to have dreams where his life sat before him, like a great tree, with powerful roots, a hearty trunk, branches that filled that sky full of leaves that rested in the breeze.  A great tree, like the one the old Rabbi had used to talk about. The night after his great banquet, though; he had a new dream that replaced the one about the tree… That night, specters closed in around him. All night, the nearer ones got nearer; and the further ones got nearer. Until one pounced upon him, and with a ghastly finger pointed, the specter crowed, “who killed the man.” The others yelped back, “he did! He did! All night he dreamt of the specters. He couldn’t see them clearly, as through his eyes. They were dim and wavy, as though he saw them through a glass, dimly… Now it was almost noon and he still wasn’t out of bed. It had been a rough morning… Rolling over he tries to remember la...

with you arms full of thorns, & your heart like a well The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark the 6th chapter ! In the Gospel today Jesus’ hometown crowd take offense at him.  And why? Simply because they think they already know him. In their hearts, the hometown crowd thinks they already know all there is to know about this Jesus… That ought to serve as a warning for us today; us who gather regularly, us who are all too prone to imagine we already know all there is to know about Jesus. After all, it is this presumed familiarity of the crowd that, not only astonishes Jesus , but makes it impossible for him to do some truly incredible feats… Today, in only the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus sends the twelve to carry out his ministry. It’s a pretty bold thing, all in all. After all, Jesus and the disciples haven’t been together all that long… But not only that; because there is that scene after Jesus told the parables, how these twelve h...