One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him...

When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of...

(And all the people who heard this, including the tax-collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. But by refusing to be baptized by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves.) Just in case we may...

[Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”] More brackets. Just to refresh our memory: brackets indicate that a particular verse or even set of verses are not found in the earliest fragments of the gospel that we have, but were contained in later...

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. It’s another small detail, I know, but again I think very important. Jesus is led away with two others, both criminals, and he will be put to death with them. Why does this matter? Because Jesus, the one we...

We had a fantastic discussion about baptism a week or two ago, one from which I am still learning. I’d like in this post to invite another conversation, this time about prayer. In recent years prayer has become more and more important to me. Not just in my own life, but as I think about the...

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is...

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 
”Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” I wonder how many of us tie God’s glory to our peace. I think that many Christians – and perhaps...

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry,...