Anxiety disorders are the number one mental health problem in the world. “Disorder” means it has reached a point of negatively effecting your life. The universal consensus among mental health professionals is that stress and anxiety go hand in hand. The reason is because even though stress comes at us from the outside, it hits us on the inside. Stress makes strong claims on our inner self. In other words, pressure on the self makes us, well, anxious. We live in an age of anxiety. And so did Jesus…
So, what does our faith grow to embrace more and more of? What all do we have in Jesus that we are meant to discover, rediscover, rest in and receive? Well, there is another Father/Son relationship in the Gospel of John, the relationship of Jesus, the Son, and God the Father. And the Father has a similar word about His Son, that He is going to die.
In other words, Jewish men looked upon Samaritan women as dirty, vile, unclean, less than human. A recipe for abuse. The Apostle John simply summarizes the bleeding in this passage by saying, “(The) Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (verse 9)…
Our story begins with a theological argument. All good church stories begin that way: “Now an argument arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew (John’s code for religious leader) over purification” (v. 25). In other words, they were debating whether good people (like the religious leader) need the grace of God or not….
The Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, Jack the Ripper, the Shroud of Turin, crop circles, the Egyptian Pyramids are mysteries. According to the standard dictionaries, a mystery must be beyond understanding. Not irrational (stupid), but supra-rational. Welcome to the world of Nicodemus in John 2:23-3:15…
