“Sell everything you have.” The words from the one he addressed as “good teacher” hit him hard, a blow to his heartfelt desire to possess yet one more thing – eternal life. Jesus said that he’d have to give everything up, everything that gave his life significance, meaning, importance, and…

As the voice crying in the wilderness, John the Baptist began his ministry by calling his people to repentance. His people demonstrated this repentance by baptism, which was probably something like a ceremonial cleansing. But the teaching of John the Baptist pointed toward another baptism, to the coming one who…

The opening verses of Hebrews contain some remarkable truths about Jesus, the unique Son of God. In fact, there are eight life-transforming truths we can learn about Jesus in these verses. Let’s see how these are unpacked in the Hebrews volume of the Bible Speaks Today commentary series. The Majestic…

Isaiah 40 marks a shift in the content of the prophet’s message. Gone are the woes and pronouncements of judgment. The prophet now turns to speak words of salvation. He speaks tender words of comfort to a people who’ve seen God’s justice cast them out of the land. These notes…

Following his teaching on the source of true defilement (Mark 7:1–23), Jesus enters Gentile territory and delivers a young girl from an unclean spirit at the desperate request of her mother. Let’s see how this exorcism anticipates the inclusion of the Gentiles into the saving purposes of God with these…

In a previous post, we looked at the role clean and unclean foods played in establishing the holiness of God’s people. Fast forward several thousand years and we see Jesus using those same categories to teach where true defilement comes from. Let’s follow up our previous post with this look…