Carol kept explaining the parable of the beaten man. “The first two people to walk past the man were people who would have known what the law said about helping your neighbor. They were a priest and a Levite, both employed in the temple, both aware of the commands to love. But both were also […]

Sometime before Thursday night of Holy Week, Jesus summarized his work. And when John writes the story, he puts this summary between the time Jesus walks away from the crowd and walks into the upper room, the place where he’s going to eat supper with his disciples. You can read it in John 12:37-50. It’s […]

We’re working our way through John 12 this week. John’s been building tension into the story. And in today’s passage, John 12:20-36, Jesus seems a little overwhelmed. Some people in town (Jerusalem) for the big religious festival want to see Jesus. Makes sense. He’s one of the tourist attractions, one of the controversial and popular […]

(First published July 24, 2013) I know. Through his nose. Unless he had a cold or allergies, in which case he breathed through his mouth. The question occurred to me as I was reading Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines. He said that the reason we struggle to understand Jesus’s statement that his yoke […]