Daily Devo | October 5, 2020
As we become mindful of his original audience, sitting in the synagogue, listening to his various lessons from the life of Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew will come to life…
Daily Devo | October 2, 2020
the Gospels say [Jesus] gave them his “authority,” a concept from the Old Testament world comes to the surface. It was known as the saliach. The saliach was the “authoritative representative.” Often…
Daily Devo | October 1, 2020
Our farmer in 4:26-29 should be understood to be like any farmer of his day: constantly at work tending to the cultivation of his crop. His “sleeping and rising” and “not knowing how” the seed sprouts are not due to inactivity, but rather refer to the undeniable metaphor Jesus is getting at with how spiritual life “sprouts and grows” in a person…
Daily Devo | September 30 ,2020
We receive a soil sample report from this farmer’s field after he has sown his seeds and turned the soil to enfold the seed beneath. That’s how agriculture worked back then. First you planted, then you cut open the earth to bury the seed and await it’s resurrection as life-sustaining grains…
Daily Devo | September 29, 2020
Michael Card does an excellent job of helping us to enter the world fo the text, so for today, I’m going to let his words carry us, and the rest of the week we’ll expand on the parable’s meaning by looking at passages that intersect and give additional light…
Daily Devo | September 25, 2020
Yesterday we noted that the father’s foolishness wasn’t really foolishness at all. Not really. Not in the economy of God’s Kingdom where fools receive hesed (mercy) but those who hate mercy receive correction. Our passages today reflect this theme….
Daily Devo | September 24, 2020
But this is the scandal of the gospel, the scandal of grace. It turns out that the story of the two brothers is a story of hesed, a story of someone who deserves nothing but gets everything! But it’s also the story of a fool….
Daily Devo | September 23, 2020
Our reading today takes us to a trio of passages that express God’s character as a shepherd toward his people. Here’s what I would like us to do today. Read each passage and then take note of how Jesus is the perfect representation of each characteristic…
Daily Devo | September 22, 2020
Shepherds and sheep are some of Scriptures favorite images for God and his people. We are the “people of his pasture” and “the sheep under his care” (Psalm 95:7; 100:3). Yahweh is the shepherd who can turn a deathly valley into a haven and cause his sheepdogs of mercy (hesed) and goodness pursue you all the days of your life…
