Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, hears about the miracles done by Jesus and his disciples.  While he is the son of a great and greatly bad man, he is only a shadow of his father. The Scottish preacher Andrew MacLaren described him this way: “This Herod was a son of the grim old tiger who slew the infants of Bethlehem. He was a true cub of a bad litter, with his father’s ferocity, but without his force. He was sensual, cruel, and infirm of purpose.” That describes him perfectly.  His father was one of the most powerful kings of the Roman Empire – called King of the…

The purpose of trials is to produce genuine faith – not just testing.  It is refining – to remove everything that looks like faith but isn’t. I was on the board of Christianity Today for eleven years and have read the board notes from the earliest years.  It has always been an unrelenting process of solving problems and overcoming obstacles.  Circulation challenges, finances, personnel, board issues.  It is a history of constant trials – not relief from them.  There is a purpose to trials.  God accomplishes through trials what cannot be done through success or easy times. As you know, I like Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search For Meaning.”  Not because…

We are partial to short phrases that help us make decisions. “Do the right thing” is popular at the moment. Google coined, “Don’t do evil.” I grew up with, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” All of those sound good until you find yourself in a situation that is not resolved so easily. You’ve heard me say before that for a couple of reasons I have questions about the phrase, “What Would Jesus Do?” First, he had abilities to do things we do not.  He could walk on water, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, raise the dead and, as in this passage, heal…

As you know from last week, one of my favorite stories of redemption and late bloomers is that of Mark. Unlike John and Matthew he was not a disciple or an apostle. Unlike Luke, he was not a Gentile observer of the early Church and he did not travel, except briefly, with Paul. He was the young man who ran away naked from Gethsemane, deserted Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey, was mentored by Peter in Rome and then martyred in Egypt. Most scholars believe that the gospel was written from Rome where his main source was Peter and Mark was, in a sense, taking dictation. You get…

One of the hallmarks and non-negotiables of American democracy is the orderly transition of power and when that is threatened it jeopardizes the foundations of our entire society. It is the same for any society and when a people cannot trust in their government to do that then there is chaos and violence. It is not only true now but it was true in the time of Jeremiah – even though Israel was far from a democracy. In most cases the power of the king passed from father to son until the nation was in its last days. That is where we are now. No longer is the throne passed…

One of the challenges in the book of Jeremiah is the way it is organized. It is not linear with one chapter beginning at a certain time and the next chapter following where that left off. It is more like snapshots of different times in your life. We could show you at ten years old and then skip to when you were married. After that we see who you were at seventeen and then jump to your 25th wedding anniversary. It would be hard to piece together your life, wouldn’t it? We are used to albums and stories that take us from start to finish in a logical way. That…

We’ve been working through the “flashback” of Jeremiah’s relationship with the Israelite kings following Josiah. This is his 40th year of ministry and he has virtually nothing to – show for it – other than faithfulness. If he were to come back to his home church to report on his results he would be a big disappointment. His message has never changed but not one king – other than Josiah – has paid any attention to him.  Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s been negative attention because every one of them have wanted him to just go away. The last time he had a good relationship with a king was…

We reached a climax last week. If this were a television show it would have had “to be continued” at the bottom of the screen and we would be waiting for a new episode or new season to find out what happens. Jeremiah has finally pushed the king and the high priest to the limit. He is not just a nuisance. He is a full-fledged traitor. He has encouraged the people of Jerusalem to surrender to the enemy and save their lives instead of fighting to the death for Jerusalem. However, instead of these chapters giving us the next installment of the story, they are something of a flashback. You…

Since last week, things have changed dramatically for Judah, Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria. As we know, Judah was reviving economically, politically and spiritually under Josiah. There was a renewed belief in the future of the country. Everyone – except Jeremiah and God – was optimistic. Egypt wanted to join forces with Assyria to attack Babylonia whose rise was a threat to their regional power. To do that, the Pharaoh’s army had to travel through Megiddo which is part of Judah. For some uncertain reasons, Josiah went out to challenge him and was killed by Pharaoh Neco. It could be that Josiah thought his opportunities for expansion were better with a…

As we said a couple of weeks ago, Jeremiah was given the burden of speaking the truth to Israel at a time they would have been surprised to hear what God had to say. From their perspective, they were in a time of renewal: economic, social, political and spiritual.  They thought of themselves as experiencing good times, finally, and turning the country around. Things were looking up and prophets should have been encouraging them – not calling them to judgment. At first they were quizzical and then angry…but Jeremiah does not change in response to the pressure. Powerful and persuasive people were leaning on Jeremiah to stop because he was…