John Mark Hicks

Texts: Mark 10:41-45; 11:15-18; 12:28-34; 14:22-25 Days 43-46 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. As Jesus traveled to Jerusalem in order to suffer and die, he frames this journey as one of service. The mission of Jesus is to serve others, and that is why he became a “slave of all.” The “Son of […]

Why do we eat at the Lord’s table like it is still Friday when it is Sunday, resurrection day?

Paul has set a high bar for Philemon. Given Philemon’s social world, Paul’s requests are astounding. As Philemon’s slave, Onesimus has neither social status nor civil rights. Onesimus cannot sit at the same table with his master. He cannot marry whom he chooses, and he has no real options other than what Philemon decides. As […]

Listening to this letter within the community of his own house church, Philemon hears Paul’s affection for Onesimus. He is not only Paul’s child but Paul’s own “heart.” “I am sending my heart back to you,” Paul writes. This simple statement has several significant rhetorical functions. First, Paul not only does not secretly hide Onesimus […]

What does it mean to eat and drink “worthily”? The church has variously interpreted the term “worthily.” A primary misunderstanding has been to read the term as an adjective rather than an adverb. Some believe they must be “worthy” to approach the supper, that is, they must have lived a pure, exemplary life before coming […]

On Resurrection Day, almost two thousand years ago, two disciples were transformed by their experience of the risen Messiah at a table in Emmaus. While walking to Emmaus, they heard the story of a Messiah who must first suffer and then enter glory. The stranger who walked with them expounded Scripture, and their hearts burned […]

The book unChristian alerted Christendom that it had an image problem with millennials. Christians are perceived as insensitive, judgmental and hypocritical. Some responses to the book  were skeptical and defensive. Others not only agreed that Christianity had an image problem but they went further. Christianity has a reality problem, that is, contemporary discipleship is often […]

Silena Moore Holman (1850-1915) was a remarkable women in the early history of Churches of Christ. Her father was killed in the Civil War and she began teaching at the age of 14. She married Dr. T. P. Holman in 1875 and mothered eight children. She exchanged multiple articles on multiple occasions with David Lipscomb […]

Jesus resumed his kingdom ministry when he returned to the sea of Galilee from the regions of Tyre and Sidon. After some time (“in those days”) Jesus was followed by a large crowd (4,000 people) into a remote place where food was not easily accessible. Mark describes this area as a “wilderness” (8:4) and uses […]

If the facts of science should shape our interpretation of Scripture (see my previous post), how do we understand what is happening at the table of the Lord?  Lipscomb uses an argument below that is rooted in an optimistic empiricism but something even more profound as I will explain. See what you think. “But if […]