Acts 2:37-46 “So continuing with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.” This is perhaps the happiest picture of a church in the entire New Testament. It images for me what I desire to find in the Church, which is the house of God. I can dissect it phrase by phrase to analyze why this picture... Read more
Acts 2:22-36 “I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord” (Joel 2:30-31; Acts 2:19-20). And on the Monday after Ascension Sunday in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight, the Lord spoke to my spirit and began to show me the wonders... Read more
Acts 2:1-21 Who doesn’t want to be like the early church?! I know I do. Who wouldn’t want supernatural signs of the presence of God such as speaking in foreign tongues and having tongues of fire over one’s head and having 3000 people turn to Christ in one day?! Who doesn’t want the unity, the joy, the growth, and the excitement? Then why don’t we have these things? There are 2 general answers. On the one hand, we could all... Read more
Acts 1 “The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach . . . ” (Acts 1:1). I find this to be one of the most illuminating verses in the New Testament. Yes, it is a little strange to think so, but then if you’ve been reading Give Us This Day you have seen strangeness and oddity (and even weirdness) bubble up from the surfaces of the page, like crude oil, black gold,... Read more
Hebrews 4:14-5:10 We should all remember the vision of Jesus Christ that St. John records in Revelation 1 (you might want to read it today). I want that image of the bright-as-the-sun Christ to be seared into your memory forever. Maybe we should all go out and stare at the sun for a few seconds to remind us of who Jesus really is. He is not the baby-faced, Bearded Girly Man Christ of Victorian pictures: He is the visible glory... Read more
Luke 24:44-53 The last verses of the Gospel of St. Luke are the final measures of the greatest symphony ever written. The final movement of St. Luke’s Symphony includes the last several chapters of Luke, and here in verses 36-53 we have the final resolution and bringing together of all the themes and actions Luke has introduced earlier in his masterpiece. In these several verses, St. Luke actually reaches all the way back to the Old Testament, to Moses, the... Read more
James 4:8-17 In the beginning of Chapter 4, James unveils the lowest layer, the very foundation, of our spiritual warfare: it is the battle within each of us between pride and humility. All throughout the Bible, the two paths a man may walk are presented in terms of a binary choice. In Genesis 3, it is the choice between obedience and disobedience. In the Psalms and Proverbs, it is the choice between the way of the wise (righteous) and the... Read more
James 1:1-17 Et tu, James? You, too, along with St. Paul and others are commanding me to rejoice in my trials? To which St. James replies simply: “Exactly.” Do you think maybe God is trying to tell me (and you) something? Like St. Paul, St. James begins his letter not with a whimper but a BANG! “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” From the beginning of his letter, James makes it clear that trials,... Read more
Ephesians 6:10-24 Have you ever gotten involved in something that suddenly revealed itself as being a lot more serious than you thought? For some, this happens in marriage, and they are like Jacob who thought he had married Rachel. But Behold! it was Leah! For Diedre Cobb, it was joining the Army Reserves and facing the difficult task of trying to explain why it took her 2 years to ask herself whether or not she believed in fighting wars. She... Read more
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Wednesday of Sunday after Ascension – Acts 3:1-10
Acts 3:1-10 Have you ever noticed that God seems to especially visit those who are spiritually prepared, especially those who have devoted themselves to a life of prayer? Do you remember how Hannah was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord, weeping in anguish, and pouring out her soul before the Lord? Because she had come before the Lord, in His house, and poured out her soul before Him, He heard her and answered her prayer. Hannah and... Read more