Beaten and left for dead in a dried up well; sold into slavery by your own family; tossed about by tempest winds within a stormy sea. Life can be brutal. Sometimes,...

This chapter of Matthew’s Gospel invites us to compare two banquets: Herod’s decadent feast of excess, arrogance, scheming, and murder in a royal palace and, in this passage, Jesus’ impromptu feast...

When this story begins, Jesus has just learned of the murder of his cousin John at the order of Herod. He wants to be alone for a while. But, as always,...

Paul is agonized over Israel’s failure to recognize Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. It breaks his heart that they cannot share his conviction that Jesus is the fulfillment of the ancient...

This passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans reveals a deeply personal side of him. He confesses his “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” that his “own people,” his fellow Jews, have...

This psalm of David is a tough one to read. And it seems a dangerous one to pray. The psalmist is sure of his own righteousness, convinced that his personal enemies...

In this passage, Jacob fords the River Jabbok with his whole family and everything he owns, and he sends them on ahead of him. We do not know why he stays...

Jacob is returning to his ancestral home in Canaan after twenty years of exile. He is rightly uncertain of his welcome. The last time he saw his brother Esau, he cheated...

Jesus Christ may be “the same yesterday today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), but that requires us to keep changing and growing rather than holding tight to our unchanging past. Human souls,...

Have you ever been with friends, family, or some large group where the goodwill seemed to overflow and the love radiate without conscious effort? You may have been very near “the...