The closing lines of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, speak of Moses’s unmatched greatness. “No prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unparalleled for all the signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do against the land of Egypt—to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land—and for all the mighty acts of power and terrifying deeds that Moses performed in

On the first Easter Sunday, the most-glorious Resurrection Day, Jesus appeared to His timid followers. “When it was evening on that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’ ” (John 20:19). And, “a week later his disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and sa

The moon was bright over the olive grove where Jesus prayed. Earlier that evening they had left Jerusalem, crossed the Kidron Valley, and climbed the slope to Gethsemane, which means “olive press.” Here, under the branches of the fruitful trees, was a quiet place to relax which He and His disciples had visited many times (Luke 22:39). The mood was somber. Earlier that evening, while still in the upper room, Jesus had declared, “Tonight all of you will fall away because of me,

On Jesus’ final trip south from Galilee to Jerusalem, He had a divine appointment with ten men outside an unnamed village on the boarders between Samaria and Galilee. From a safe distance the ten called out the required warning, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45). The troop of ten, in varying stages of death and decay, were wrapped in their tattered and torn clothing, bandages oozing and nasty. Like the four lepers in the days of Elisha (2 Kings 7:1-20), the community of b

While Matthew, Mark, and John are silent concerning this event, the physician, Doctor Luke, recorded the story of a man healed of dropsy. “Dropsy.” That’s how the King James and the New King James Versions, the New American Standard, and the English Standard Version translate the name of the disease. The New Living Translation speaks of a man “whose arms and legs were swollen” (Luke 14:2, NLT). The New International Version says the man had “abnormal swelling of his body” (Lu

What’s special about the number eighteen? When you’re eighteen-years-old you can get married, you can vote, you can enlist in the United States military... That’s important. But, is the number eighteen Scripturally significant? The number shows up a few times in the Old Testament, but only three times in the New Testament, each in the thirteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 13:4, 11, 16). Luke’s thirteenth chapter opens as “some people came and reported to (Jesus) about the

This may rank as Jesus’ most unusual miracle. It is certainly not surprising that Matthew, the tax-collector-turned-disciple, recorded the story. You can be certain that in Matthew’s career as a Roman tax collector, nobody else had ever told him a story like this one. “When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, ‘Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. When he went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, ‘What

“Jesus healed many people of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and he granted sight to many blind people” (Luke 7:21). On at least five specific occasions, Jesus gave sight to the blind. One of those miraculous occasions is recorded in Matthew’s nineth chapter. “As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When he entered the house, the blind men approached him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I ca

How did he die? Was it an accident? Had he fallen from a horse? Had he been murdered or had an infection spread through his body, killing him slowly? The Bible doesn’t record the details. The story, told in just five short verses, is found only in the Book of Luke. “Afterward he was on his way to a town called Nain. His disciples and a large crowd were traveling with him. Just as he neared the gate of the town, a dead man was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, a

Observing the size and scale of the man’s faithfulness, “Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith’ ”(Matthew 8:10). Jesus recognized the man’s strong faith and complemented it. Wow! The word that Matthew used to describe the quantity and quality of the man’s faith is not a particularly common word. It’s only used twenty times in the entire New Testament. John used the same word when he describ