In a world full of upheaval, we need something to anchor us. The apostle John wrote three letters to the early church to help them find the anchor they needed in Jesus. And these letters can help us, too.
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Eric Stiller
We’re experiencing a crisis of hope in our culture. The Bible is not the only story that offers some kind of hope. But the hope it offers is unique from every other story.
Church doesn’t feel like an option for many people. And yet, none of the spiritual options our culture offers us are capable of satisfying our spiritual longings. What do we do with that? This passage helps us.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a historical reality that can change your life and the world. How? This amazing passage shows us.
In the first garden Adam and Eve by their actions said to God, in effect, Not what You will but what we will and brought upon all humanity a reign of sin and death. In Gethsemane, the second garden, Jesus prays Not what I will but what You will, reversing the pattern of rebellion and setting in motion a sequence of events to defeat death itself!
Whatever story you believe about the world shapes the way you live in the world. Jesus’ death on the cross gives us a new story to shape our lives in this world.
Even though we live in a morally relativistic culture, the problem of evil is still a problem. What do we do with that? Does God have a solution? The wilderness temptation of Jesus shows us.
There’s something about life in this world that always leaves us wanting more, but we feel cut off from it. Why is that, and what do we do with it? The big story of the Bible explains why we feel cut off and what God does about it.
We can find life and hope under the reign of the one true King.
God led Israel in the wilderness for 40 years. Why? Because the wilderness is a place of suffering. And suffering is one of the main ways, if not the main way, you meet God.
It’s easy to think of God’s law as an arbitrary set of rules we must obey to get God to love us. But this passage shows us it’s actually a picture of what it looks like to live inside the story of what God is already doing in our lives and the world.
Whatever story you believe about the world shapes your life in the world. The Bible gives us a story that sets us free and transforms us. The Exodus story shows us how.
Salvation is a culturally loaded term, but it’s simply another way of talking about transformation. And often we don’t just long for transformation, we groan for it. This passage helps us understand both our groaning and our longing.
Exile and homecoming is one of the main themes in the Bible. With all the progress we’ve made in the world, why are we still so unhappy? And is there any remedy? This passage shows us.
In modern, Western culture, not only do we have a distorted picture of God, we have a distorted picture of sin. This passage helps us understand why, and points us toward the path of healing and freedom.
We all wrestle with identity questions: Who am I? Does my life matter? The Bible gives us a story that gets to the heart of those questions in a way that no other story does.
We all feel like our lives are part of a story. That’s exactly what the Bible offers us: a big story to live in. Every story has a setting. What kind of world are we in? This passage shows us.
Sometimes the greyness of life can make every step a marathon. How can we keep going? Faith in Jesus is the answer. He who won the race for us powers us forward through the persevering practice of faith.
Human beings long for love, especially the love of God. When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he showed them the true meaning and the full extent of God's love.
In our world, you can have joy, or you can have suffering. What you can’t have is both. But this passage shows us that suffering can actually be one of the most powerful ways the joy of Christ comes alive in you.