Red Letter Episodes

Luke 14:25–33 stands among the most penetrating and demanding teachings of Jesus. After decades of studying this concept (not always in the Bible - I lived most of my adult life as an atheist), its weight still presses deeply...

I think we fall into this trap more than we're willing to admit. Factions within the church is one thing but we all want to believe that we are in the "right" church. As we jump back on the Red-Letter journey today, we see th...

As we continue following the Red Letters chronologically, we arrive at Peter asking Jesus how many times he must forgive his brother. How Jesus responds is profound and as we dig into this, we start to see real evidence of ho...

Just when all appears lost, Jesus opens the door. Jesus has just sunk the person who leads another to stumble, quite literally with a millstone around his neck. But then he turns to the one who stumbles and that picture doesn...

Jesus has just issued woes against the person who causes one of his children (one of the believers) to stumble. That doesn't mean the person that stumbles get a pass! Notes on the Stumbler

After Jesus has held a child up as an example of who is the greatest in the kingdom, he expands the meaning of "child" to cover all believers. You are indeed a child of God. We're reading Matthew 18:6, Matthew 18:10, Matthew ...

If you want to destroy a kids soccer game, load the benches with their parents! If you can picture the concept I'm reaching for, you'll also be able to picture what Jesus was teaching his disciples about being Child-Like. Jes...

Yesterday, in Church, we covered 1 Corinthians 9. In our Red-Letter journey, we encounter Peter being asked if Jesus pays the temple tax. It turns out that these two scriptures dovetail really well! So today, we launch off th...

What we heard in parables is now fully out in the open. Coming off the transfiguration, in the disclosure of His death and resurrection, Jesus now spells it out in plain English. What is fascinating is not the revelation itse...

How does your discipleship look? Are you seeing comfort in your relationship? Are you holding back until such a time when you'll have enough time to be fully committed. Are you straddling your commitments to the world and you...

We have just witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, and the pieces should be falling into place both for us and those that witnessed the event. Sometimes the best way to read the Bible is to put yourself in t...

There's a subtle lesson I'm slowly beginning to learn. Start your day in scripture and the rest of your day will follow you. Start your day in the world, in your email inbox, on your phone or social media and you're the follo...

We just left Caesarea Phillipi where Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. Shortly after this, Jesus has a discussion to let His disciples know what MUST now happen. It is news the disciples are not quite ready for... though...

I loved resting on this passage and digging into it. The full weight of what is happening comes to life when we understand the context and the setting of Caesarea Philippi. We spent some time tracing who they really thought J...

Sometimes the fly on the wall gets the best perspective! We're in a synagogue on a Sunday, of course, and a woman has been coming to this place for 18 years. Everything we see here smacks of cliche'. Jesus healing on the Sabb...

We took the opportunity today to step back and look at how we read scripture. Jesus has just come from the Decapolis. He's healed a woman's daughter, a deaf mute, fed 10,000 people on the mountain without only 7 loaves of bre...

I had to read this a few times. I'm convinced that this is what's going on. Jesus is in the Decapolis. He has just left a woman who accepts the Jewish perspective of gentiles as dogs. Even the dog eats the crumbs from his mas...

I don't get emotional much when I'm reading something. Today, for some reason, I did. And I had to stop, back up and zoom in on a scene that would have been so easy to blow past. Jesus is leaving the region of Tyre and Sidon....

We just saw Jesus proclaim to the Jews in Capernaum: "I am the Bread of Life". That caused quite a ruckus. From here, Jesus retreats into gentile territory for the first time in his ministry and encounters a gentile mother. I...

Almost every encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees becomes a teaching moment for Jesus and a learning one for us. It starts off simple enough. Jesus and His disciples sat down to eat. The religious elite seem mortified th...

It's easy to look at the scriptures and judge. It's better to look at the scriptures and learn. We often ask: "How could those guys have missed the Messiah?" He was standing right there, healing, casting out demons, raising t...

The title is intended to be provocative. Of course A.I. is not the bread of life... however you don't have to go far into the web to discover many people that would disagree with you. As we were walking through the Red-Letter...

Jesus and the disciples are leaving a full day. They never seem to have time to rest. After the feeding of the 5000, Jesus instructs his disciples to take the boat over to their next destination. Jesus dismisses the crowd and...

The Disciples have returned from their mission. They've seen Jesus over the course of about two years perform every kind of miracle. They've seen Him calm the storms and cast out a Legion of Demons. He's turned water into win...