John Mark Hicks

Texts: Acts 6:7; 4:23-31; 12:24; Revelation 5:9-13 Days 65-67 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. When God created the cosmos, God invested in humanity a particular vocation:  fill the earth, subdue the chaos, and shepherd (rule) the creation (Genesis 1:28). As participants in the new creation, the people of God extend this human vocation […]

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).

The following is three paragraphs from a paper which I have just placed on my Academic page. The paper is entitled “The Unfinished Business of the Protestant Reformation: Alexander Campbell’s Relationship to Protestantism.”  It was delivered on April 8, 2017 at the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference held at Johnson University. You may read the full paper […]

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28 The Lord God took the adam and rested […]

[Sermon preached at Woodmont Hills Church of Christ in Nashville, TN.] In 597 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, exiled Jehoiakim, the King of Judah, along with some 3,000 others to Babylon. This was the second deportation from Judah (an earlier one was in 605 B.C.E.) and it would not be the last (another when Jerusalem […]

When Jonah, a prophet who stands before the face of Yahweh, is commissioned to cry out against the evil in Nineveh ascending before the face of Yahweh, Jonah flees from the face of Yahweh to Tarshish,  the opposite direction. Divine Commission Kevin Youngblood (Jonah: God’s Scandalous Mercy) correctly suggests Jonah 1 is a commission narrative. […]

“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 […]

While doing some research in Nashville newspapers, I encountered this piece by David Lipscomb:  “South Nashville Church of Christ,” Daily American (January 17, 1906), p. 8. I thought it was interesting for several reasons. 1.  It illustrates that Lipscomb thought church planting was the way to grow the kingdom. 2. It illustrates the use of […]

God tests Jesus in the wilderness and Satan tempts him to satisfy his desires by inappropriate means. One need is hunger. It would seem that satisfying hunger should not be characterized as inappropriate. Food is a created good to be enjoyed. The Slanderer (Diabolos) suggests that Jesus should create his own food. If he really […]