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Joel has written 322 articles so far, you can find them below.
President Obama condemned Congressional gridlock on Friday for failure over the budget. His exact words: “We can’t keep running the government based on two-week extensions. That’s irresponsible.” One wonders what He considers the $1,650,000,000,000 (Trillion) deficit at the root of the gridlock. Is that “responsible”? Was it responsible of the Democrat-dominated Congress last fall to [...]
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Most Christians remember Jesus’ cleansing of the temple as that one instance in which He was visibly angry, but it was OK because He was righteously angry at the people using His religion in order to make a profit. These same Christians then leave church on Sunday and go buy Jesus junk in their local [...]
Full Story » Having essentially just banned the Pharisees from the kingdom of God, Jesus turns to deliver an equally stiff challenge to the multitude following Him. Would they be good material for discipleship—for the kingdom of God? The requirements and level of sacrifice would be very high. It is important to note once again the change in [...]
Full Story » The following section of Luke (13:10–35) flows directly from the previous teachings, and develops them to 1) strengthen the dichotomy between Jesus and the current leaders of Israel/Jerusalem, and 2) clearly pronounce the coming judgment upon Jerusalem. The outlook, in short, was not good for the mass of the Jews. A Fruitful Sabbath After His [...]
Full Story » My second talk from the 2010 Bulgarian Worldview Conference. A Sermon on 1 Kings 22:29–36: So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramothgilead. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put thou on thy robes. And the [...]
Full Story » The following post is from a presentation I gave at last year’s Bulgarian Worldview Conference. I have been promising several people for some time now that I would post it. My apologies for the terrible delay. The second talk will follow shortly in a separate post. I have used some of this material already in [...]
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After a substantial private discussion with His disciples emphasizing how committed and ready they must be for the coming division, Jesus finally turns back with a message for the larger audience (Luke 12:54). Remember, back in Luke 12:1, this is a massive crowd: they had grown so large they began to trample each other. This [...]
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Jesus’ advice to “seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you” (Luke 12:31), came in the context of the parable of the rich fool. He instructed His disciples not to chase luxury and wealth as the end-goal of life, for God would suddenly call them to account. In this parable we saw a [...]
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With his face still set against Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), Jesus continued His journey there, prosecuting His case against the adulterous city as He went. Picking up after the parable of the strong man (11:1–26), this week we’ll proceed further into that lawsuit. As we noted before, Jesus fulfilled the prophet’s role of bringing a covenant [...]
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As I wrote last week, “Most people don’t realize that many if not most of Jesus’ parables were intended not as general morality tales, but as particular pronouncements of coming judgment and change. Jesus was warning Jerusalem to repent and to accept its new King (Jesus) or else fall under ultimate condemnation of God. In [...]
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