Lesson 21: Run with Perseverance

June 12, 2024

Hebrews 12:1-17 Lesson 21: Run the Race with Perseverance Hebrews 12:1-17 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer […]


Psalm 73 — Derek: Meditating on the Way

May 31, 2024

Psalm 73: “I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked . . . But when I thought to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God.” Dr. Michael Brown joins Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks for a discussion of the […]


Lesson 18: Don’t Abandon Your Confidence

May 22, 2024

Hebrews 10:26-39 For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy “on the testimony […]


Ruth: Lesson Three

November 1, 2023

Returning to Bethlehem (Ruth 1:19-22) So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them,             “Call me no longer Naomi,                         call me Mara,                         for the Almighty […]


Moffitt: Rethinking the Atonement

May 15, 2023

I have now read the fifth of twelve books suggested by FB friends. This one was recommended by Michael Asbell. This is my summary. David Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2022). While the term “atonement” is most often used to describe the cross of Jesus […]


Lamenting While Waiting in Hope

March 29, 2023

Texts: Romans 5:1-5; 8:18-27; Hebrews 5:8-10 Days 71-74 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Divine grace empowers hopeful waiting even as we groan for wholeness, for shalom. We live in-between-the-times. The creation is a very good place to inhabit. Yet, it is presently filled with chaos, both natural and moral. In many ways, God’s […]


Jesus Suffers: Garden, Via Dolorosa, and Cross

March 2, 2023

Texts: Matthew 26:36-46; Luke 22:52-53; Luke 23:32-47 Days 47-49 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Video available here If we had not been sufficiently convinced of the humanity of Jesus, perhaps because he also God in the flesh, the movement from the Garden to the Cross might just seal the deal. Jesus suffers. Jesus […]


Jesus Wept (John 11:35)

November 14, 2022

Sermon at the Cedar Lane Church of Christ in Tullahoma, TN, on November 13, 2022 based on John 11:32-37. The sermon begins at the 35 minute mark.


Hebel Happens: A Sermon on September 11, 2022

September 12, 2022

This sermon was delivered at the Well House Church in Nashville, TN. The sermon begins at about 44 minutes. Hebel happens. 9-11 happened. Hebel is the word the preacher in Ecclesiastes uses thirty-seven times to describe a world soaked in death. Life is brief, a vapor. It is absurd and an enigma. It is unfathomable; […]


We Don’t Give Up Because We Know . . . (2 Corinthians 4:18-5:10)

May 11, 2022

A Keynote Address for Harbor, Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA, on May 6, 2022 Influenced by both their Greco-Roman culture and egged on by the intruders Paul called the “super-apostles,” the Corinthians apparently thought the ministry of a celebrity pastor like Paul should be characterized by thrilling and brilliant rhetoric about his visionary experiences, triumphant […]