As Jesus teaches in the Temple, using figures of speech to move people from the temporal and physical to the eternal and spiritual, some believe, some reject Him and some wait to see what happens.
Arguably, Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president in American History. He led the nation through its greatest test—the Civil War (1861-1865). As early as 1838, Lincoln argued that the Republic would not collapse from an outside invasion; rather, it would collapse from within. He also believed that popular governments, which rest their sovereignty in the
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Jesus’ teaching divides the people of Galilee—some believe, some reject Him, while others seek more evidence; so, He goes to Jerusalem in obedience to His Father’s “time.”
In June the Supreme Court handed down its major 2020 decision on LGBTQ rights in the workplace. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia involved a man named Gerald Bostock—by all accounts an exemplary worker with a decade on the job—who was fired for conduct “unbecoming” a government employee shortly after he had started participating in a gay softball league.
Jesus’ strategy is to move people from dwelling on the physical and temporal to understanding their spiritual and eternal need; therefore, He is the” bread of life”.
In 1976, Newsweek magazine proclaimed “the year of the evangelical,” with a cover story on being “born again.” It charted the expanding influence of evangelical churches, which were theologically and politically diverse, and, the article argued, were positioned to have a major impact of the nation’s public morality. After all, evangelicals were strategically important in the election of Jimmy Carter, a self-professed evangelical who talked of being born again. Today, few would portray the evangelical movement with such positive qualities.
As Jesus offers six proofs of His deity, He also feeds the 5,000 and walks on water–further proofs of His deity.
Most of us born in America think about truth and the Bible through the grid of Western rationalism and linear thinking. That reality informs how we interpret and apply the Bible, especially its teachings about Jesus and the ethical dimensions of genuine, biblical Christianity. I have been challenged by a recently released book, entitled Seeing Jesus from the East: A Fresh Look at History’s Most influential Figure by [the late] Ravi Zacharias and Abdu Murray.
As the Pharisees chastise Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, He explains His relationship with the heavenly Father as one of equality, interdependence and mutual honor.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many religious figures in all major world religions to think of end-of-the-world scenarios or what is also known as the apocalypse, from the Greek word, apocalypsis—also the title of the last book of the Bible, Revelation. There are crazy websites that see a worldwide conspiracy in the COVID-19 crisis; speculate that Bill Gates is the antichrist; and maintain that the government is trying to suppress religious freedom using the COVID-19 hoax. Our enemies are all around us, they exclaim, and we must be ready. Such teachings feed irrational fears in the midst of this crisis and are not really based on the authority of Scripture.
