Biblical and Practical Teaching

When God Speaks like a Mother (Is 49 & 66; Matt 23)

God sometimes uses the language of a mother to describe how he relates to us. There are beautiful scriptures where he tells us how he sees us, hears our cry and deeply cares for us, using mother imagery.

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Exploring the Deep Encouragement in one of the Richest Psalms: Ps 103

This psalm is beautifully constructed, and designed to stir our hearts to praise God by painting a picture of how he cares for us so deeply. What encouragement!

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A New Revelation of Love (1 John 4:7-11)

We already knew that God is a God of power yet compassion, purity yet forgiveness, high above all but utterly faithful as a friend. But Jesus revealed something new, something shocking, something almost unbelievable, at the very core of the supreme being.

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What the Bible says about Blessing

What does it mean to bless someone? Does it actually do anything? How can a human bless God? We need a firm Biblical foundation for answering these questions.

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Baptism: Leaving the Old and Entering the New (Romans 6:3–11)

The truth behind baptism is deeply empowering and encouraging, and can explain some of the tensions we experience as we try to live the Christian life.

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Chesed —A Word for Love Stronger than Any Other (Is 54:10; Ps 136 +)

Through stories of how God relates to humans we learn of a different kind of love that is at the core of who God is. Chesed is utterly faithful, loyal to the very end, a love that will never let you go. When you understand it, there is no word that is more beautiful.

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How Jesus' Resurrection Directly Empowers Us (John 20, 1 Cor 15, Col 3)

The resurrection of Jesus was not simply coming back to life, but the start of a new kind of humanity. It gives us access to a new kind of life within us—empowered for victory.

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Reading the Old Testament in our Devotions

All the Bible is God’s Word, and is beneficial, but different parts have different purposes. Some parts are more suitable for study than devotional reading and we can get discouraged if we make this mistake. Here is a way of deciding where to read.

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Mark in a Month 6. Loving and Worshipping the One Who Ransomed us

Let us read the last three chapters, and feel what it was like for Jesus, the one who paid our ransom, and be filled with love and adoration for him.

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Mark in a Month 5. Two Difficult Passages in Mark (11:23-24 & ch.13)

Most of Mark’s Gospel is very easy to understand, but here are a couple of passages that give people problems: Jesus' instructions about praying in faith seem confusing, and his predictions about the end of the age are hard to make sense of.

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