A bit of a longer post today. Besides creating art for Full of Eyes, I’m also the pastor of a small congregation in rural Ohio. Recently, Anna Mae, the mother of one of our members, fell down the stairs at her home and her frail, 94 year, old body was terribly broken. The prayers and […]
Psalm 42:11, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” How do we know that ‘we shall again praise Him’? How do we know that this darkness is going to lift? That we will rise again from this pit? That the hopelessness that has devoured days, months, years of
Isaiah 37:14, ‘Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of YHWH, and spread it before YHWH.’ The Text Considered The letter that Hezekiah receives here is a message from the king of Assyria saying that YHWH is unable to save His people
2 Corinthians 4:17-18, ‘This light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.’ The sufferings of this age—which are the sufferings of Christ on our behalf—are working eternal glory for those
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Psalm 102: 24-26, [v.24] ‘Oh my God,’ I say, ‘take me not away in the midst of my days—you whose years endure throughout all generations!’ [v.25] Of old you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. [v.26] They will perish, but you will remain… Heb. 1:10 cites
2 Cor 4:17-18, ‘this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.’ Paul does not say that our afflictions in this life will *give way* to glory, but that our
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1 Corinthians 12:26-27, ‘…if one member suffers, all the members suffer with [it]; if a member is glorified, all the members rejoice together. Now, you yourselves are the body of Christ, and individually members of it,’ We are members of the body of Christ, and, in His suffering, Christ has suffered the sufferings of His
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John 6:68, ‘Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ When the torrents of confusion and uncertainty and doubt hammer against the disciples’ faith, what is it that binds them to Christ? It is not an elaborate system of apologetic arguments, it is not a collection of manuscript evidence, it
Gen 50:20, “…you *meant* evil against me, but God *meant* it for good…” Don’t miss the parallelism in this statement. It is not that Joseph’s brothers *meant* evil, and that God *used* their actions for good, it is that—in the very same action—the brothers meant evil and God meant good. There are at
Hebrews 10:34, “…you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” If we honestly consider what the Spirit is saying to us in these words, it truly is revolutionary. How do disciples of the slain and risen Lord respond when—because they
Job 36:15, “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” He delivers the afflicted by their affliction….another way to say this is that the Lord uses adversity and suffering as a means of deliverance and sanctification and healing for those who experience adversity and suffering. Affliction is made to
Rev.12:11, “…they have conquered him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Satan—the Great Dragon—is decisively conquered when the “Male Child” (Christ) is raised to the throne of God (Rev.12:5), which is to say, when He is lifted up
Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that YHWH is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Hebrew poetry often employs a technique called “parallelism” by which the second parallel line in some way restates or comments on the first. When we read Psalm 34:8 in light of this technique, it helps
Matthew 8:17, “…He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. On the cross, Jesus bears the fullness of sin and its effects in the place of any and all who will hope in Him. This means not only that He bears His people’s sin and the hell it is due, but also that He
2 Corinthians 1:8-9, “…we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had receive the sentence of death. But this was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Disciples of Jesus are not promised an easy time
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Romans 8:17, “…provided we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” The Passage Considered Sometimes, when we think of suffering with Christ, we might imagine that Christ is the sufferer and that WE take on HIS sufferings. While there is a sense in which this is true,
John 16:20, “You will be sorrowful…” I think the disciples’ experience of the crucifixion over Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday gives us a pattern to understand the sufferings and sorrows in our own life, in the world around us, and in history as a whole. On Good Friday, the worst thing imaginable happens—joy
Luke 12:4-7 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. but I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Imagine that you
Psalm 116:3,6, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish…YHWH preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me.” /// When sinking down, in chaos bound And ‘compassed round with fear To Him I look, who chaos took And so, in
Luke 22:42, “…not my will, but yours, be done.” Here in Gethsemane, the heart of Christ–which is a heart of obedience–is put on display. And the essence of that heart is encapsulated in these words: “not my will, but yours, be done.” Contrary to what some would say, this language does not point to a
