It was water she came for. This lonely, broken, thirsty Samaritan woman of Sychar brought a heavy pot to the well and found she was not alone as she usually was at this time of day in this place. Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, sat there. Her first inclination was to...

Jesus told a series of three stories in Luke 15, all of them related to lost things. This was the mission of the Son – “to seek and to save that which is lost” (see Luke 19:10). This set of stories climaxes with what has been come to be known...

“Felix trembled.” A powerful man heard the Gospel message, and he did not know what to do with it. We read about this Roman ruler in the book of Acts. Paul, the great missionary to the Gentiles, had been apprehended in Jerusalem. Jewish religious zealots sought to assassinate the onetime...

High noon, it was, and such a strange hour to come to the village well. This woman tried to sneak around right there in the bright, hot sun. She plotted to drop her pail, get her water, and be gone before anyone could notice her. Her ways were well known...

Jonah slipped outta God’s directive and wound up jailed, in a fish; cried out for God’s help, became fish-disgorge,  bleached and beached, opted to go preach, saved the Ninevites nation. What can we learn? Folks squirm outta life daily only to enter self-incarceration; self-reproach, fright, despondency. These we try to lighten...

What’s in a name? Take Andrew for example. The word means “man.” That’s it. There’s no larger metaphor attached to it. It’s as if his parents took a look at the boy child and suddenly were at a loss as to what to call him. So they took the easy...

Jonah is such an important piece of writing for believers – especially in these times. The four chapters give us a picture of real man who was called by God to serve up the message of God. Jonah was a prophet, a man chosen to tell about God and His...

Who were the friends of Jesus and how did they become His friends? John 1 paints a picture of how the first disciples of Jesus were drawn to Him. The important man in the story is John the Baptist. He was actually a relative of the Lord. We find this...

Jesus traveled through Samaria. He and His disciples were on the run because they had become marked men. Their movement had become bigger than that of John the Baptist. John the Baptist conducted his ministry out of the way, down at the Jordan River. And, the Baptist’s eccentric ways, his...

Jonah ignored his mission. More than that, this prophet ran as far away from it as he could. It was a mission given from God to this prophet, a mission the prophet wanted nothing to do with. He was called to deliver a message of warning to an evil city...