John Mark Hicks

Texts: Luke 3:21-22; Luke 4:1-2a, Luke 4:16-21; Matthew 4:13-17 Days 33-36 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Israel needed a do-over.  Humanity needed a do-over. The Messiah comes to recapitulate the story of humanity through the story of Israel. This lesson is the beginning of the Messiah’s participation in the story of Israel in […]

Texts: Amos 5:14-15, 24; Zechariah 7:8-12; Malachi 3:1-5 Days 27-29 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. When Jesus characterized Israel’s Scripture as the “Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44). The previous two classes discussed the Torah (Law) and Wisdom (which is typically included among the “Psalms” and often called “The Writings” in traditional […]

Texts: 1 Chronicles 29:29-30; Psalm 19:14 Days 20-22 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Every people-group has a history; they tell stories about their journey. And every people-group has a liturgy; they worship someone or something.  Israel is no different. The Torah and subsequent histories (running from Judges through Kings and Chronicles to Ezra-Nehemiah) narrates […]

Texts: Genesis 12:1-3, 7a; Exodus 6:2-8; Exodus 19:3-6. Days 14-16 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Who is Israel, and what is her purpose? It is a new humanity in a new Eden to continue and further the mission of God in the world. Following the collapse of the world into violent imperialism and […]

This is one meditation from the published book by John Mark Hicks, Around the Bible in 80 Days: The Story of God from Creation to New Creation (Abilene: Leafwood Press, 2022).

We pray for daily bread, and we eat daily meals. Yet, some restrict the Lord’s Supper—the meal where we eat at the table of the Lord—to only and exclusively the first day of the week, Sunday. This restriction is a rather unique dimension of Churches of Christ. Is eating with Jesus (Matthew 26:29) restricted to […]

This is the peak moment in the story of Jonah. God commissioned Jonah, but Jonah fled. God pursued Jonah, and Jonah relented and accepted the commission (after almost drowning). Jonah proclaimed hope/warning to Nineveh, and Nineveh repented. God “repented,” and Jonah… One might expect Jonah to rejoice, but this is not what Jonah does. Instead, […]

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai” (1:1) Shipmates, this book containing only four chapters—four yearns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a […]

This section is soaked in quotations, allusions, and echoes of the Hebrew Scriptures. Peter depends heavily on Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22, Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 43:20-21, Exodus 19:5-6, Isaiah 42:12, and Hosea 2:23. Out of the 126 Greek words that lie behind the English text, almost half of them are directly from the Hebrew Bible (quoted […]

Elect exiles, scattered across the Roman provinces of modern Turkey, are the heirs of Israel’s story, which means they participate in the trajectory of not only Israel’s history but also its hopes. Significantly, the “salvation” in which believers rejoice is what Israel, through its prophets, anticipated. The living hope and future inheritance—“this salvation”—in which believers […]