Last week when my wife and I were in the car, I was zigzagging down the road, having difficulty dodging all the potholes left over from winter, not yet repaired.  It was impossible to miss all of them, jarring the car each time we hit one.  My wife commented, “This is like trying to dodge the potholes of life.  You just can’t miss them all no matter how hard you try.”

How right she was!  Life has many potholes, and when you hit them, you are jarred, the wheels of life are knocked out of line, and sometimes your tires blowout and you have to come to a complete stop.  Of course, I am speaking metaphorically.  But you know what I mean by the potholes of life, and unless you are a very unusual person, you have experienced many of them yourself. 

Just how does one cope with the potholes of life?  Read more…

There had been all kinds of rumors about the man Jesus of Galilee.  He had left his home and spent most of his time with a band of twelve other men.  He appeared to have unusual powers.  Some claimed that he had healed their sick. Others said that he had cured their lame.  There were those who even claimed that he could cast out evil spirits.  

He was a man of considerable authority, yet he was very kind.  There were those who suggested he was the expected Messiah, the chosen of God, who would bring freedom and new life for the Jewish people.  But up until then, he had made absolutely no overture toward establishing a kingdom.  On the contrary, as pointed out last week, he had always dismissed large crowds.  But on the Sabbath of Palms, Read more…

Palm Sunday is only one week away.? Have you ever stopped to think about what Jesus did the week before the original Palm Sunday?? There were two ruling authorities in Palestine at that time: the political government that was definitely the ultimate authority, and the religious leaders, whose religious practices could be different from region to region.? Let?s take a detailed look at how things were in Palestine at that time and how Jesus responded to them the week prior to Palm Sunday.?

The Roman emperors had done a superb job of taking control of the more distant and border areas of the Empire, like Palestine, and of keeping peace in these more remote areas after taking them over?all without the use of force or weapons.? How did they do it? Read more…

Almost everyone enjoys a good story, especially when the storyteller has a real talent for relating stories.? That is one of the reasons the parables of Jesus have attracted the interest of people from all walks of life dating as far back as the beginning of Christianity.? Jesus was a master storyteller.??

It was the genius of Jesus to use real-life stories?parables?to unite our vertical connection to the Almighty with our horizontal connections to all of life.? If the parables are properly understood, they make God real and foremost in understanding all of our relationships in our daily lives: personal, social, political, professional, recreational?yes, through the parables we can be connected to God in all that we think, say, and do, to life itself.? Read more…