Mark 1:14-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, I don’t know about you, but I suspect it didn’t look like God’s kingdom had come near to any of the persons Jesus first called to be disciples. I mean, they still had to work, long hard hours to scrape out a living as fishermen. Whatever challenges they had at home were still there. Whatever unfulfilled dreams they entertained were no closer to being realized. Moreover, Rome was still in power. They were still living in an occupied nation. Herod was the brutal puppet leader of their region and Pontius Pilate still governed Judea with an iron fist from Jerusalem. No, I doubt that it looked very...

The Vikings should not be in the playoffs. No way. No one expected it. Even through most of the season, people hardly mentioned them, except perhaps for noting that head coach Mike Zimmer (for most of his career a defensive coordinator) put together a really good defense. Why shouldn’t they be in the playoffs? Last year’s record was mediocre (8-8), and you don’t often improve that much in one year, particularly when your starting quarterback (Teddy Bridgewater) isn’t expected to play much and you trade away your franchise running back (Adrian Peterson). Moreover, even when they got off to a decent start, the QB brought in to replace...

John 1:43-51 Dear Partner in Preaching, What struck me in this week’s passage is the degree to which Nathaniel’s first reaction to Jesus feels rather tinged by sarcasm. I say “feels” only because sarcasm seems more frequent in our media than in our Scriptures. We are used to talk radio hosts, media pundits, cultural commentators, or sports analysts employing sarcasm from time to time to make a point. (And lately, perhaps, more than “from time to time”!) But rarely do you hear something sarcastic in Scripture, and that caught my attention. While I first found Nathaniel’s reaction – and John’s reporting of it, for that matter...

Mark 1:4-11 Dear Partner in Preaching, I don’t know about you, but from time to time – okay, so maybe a little more often than from time to time – I find myself wondering whether my preaching makes a difference. That’s not to say I doubt that it should make a difference – we’re talking about proclaiming the Gospel, after all! – but whether it actually does. On a Sunday like this, that question feels both more persistent and more urgent. It is, after all, one of those “minor” feasts, the Baptism of our Lord, and I can’t help but wonder how many people understand why Jesus’ baptism matters. Or why Jesus was baptized in...