Nehemiah 11 by Pastor Lawrence Bowlin After the wall had been built and the covenant renewed, it was necessary to determine who would need to dwell within the holy city of Jerusalem. It was not that there were too many Israelites vying for the opportunity to live within the walled city but, rather, too few. Just as only a remnant of Israelites chose to return to the Promised Land after the decree of Cyrus, so…

Nehemiah 10 by Pastor Mark Hudson This chapter is a response of the people to what happened in chapter 8.  Ezra reads the law with others interpreting the verses (8:7-8).  The people respond by lifting up their hands, bowing and prostrating themselves (8:6). But Nehemiah , Ezra, and the Levites remind the people not mourn or weep over their sins.  But they are to “eat the fat and drink sweet wine” because “this day is…

Nehemiah 9 by Pastor David Groendyk The wall is finished, the attackers are fended off, and the law of God has been read, explained, and preached. About three-and-a-half weeks after this grand reform through Ezra has started, the people offer this corporate prayer of praise, confession, and help. According to the ESV Gospel Transformation Study Bible, this is the longest recorded prayer in the Bible, and with that knowledge in mind, it’s particularly interesting to…

Nehemiah 8 by Pastor Lawrence Bowlin This is clearly a time of revival in the history of Israel.  After rebuilding the temple and the walls of the city, the people are now in a good and safe place to devote themselves more fully to the Lord.  Having lived in exile for so many years, they had been deprived of the blessings of the ordinary means of grace in the context of the Church, but now…

Nehemiah 7 by Pastor Mark Hudson When you read Nehemiah 7, most of us have several questions.  Why is there a need in the Bible for this list of names that takes 73 verses to complete?  And one might also wonder if they have seen this list before?  The second question is much easier to answer.  Ezra 2 has this same list.   Although Nehemiah comes after Ezra, this might be the original list.  Since Ezra…

Nehemiah 5 by Pastor Mark Hudson Nehemiah 5 is easily divided into two major sections: 1-13; 14-18, with a summary statement in v. 19.  We will focus only on the first section.  Nehemiah is presented with a scandalous problem.  It seems that the wealthier Jews were taking advantage of their less fortunate brethren.  This had reached a crisis point where the wives complain about their financial predicament to Nehemiah.  There are a variety of problems. …

Nehemiah 4 by Pastor David Groendyk Sanballat and Tobiah (vv. 1, 3) have been ominously mentioned before (in 2:10 and 2:19). Now they’re back again, and the opposition against the Jews rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem intensifies. God’s people face multiple threats in the book of Nehemiah. Some of those threats come from within the people of God themselves in the form of their own sin (for example, chapters 5 and 9), but the threats…

Nehemiah 2 by Pastor Mark Hudson Ever since Nehemiah heard that the remnant in Jerusalem were “in great trouble and shame” and that “the wall of Jerusalem is broken down” in 1:3, he begins to fast and pray.  So, for around 3- or 4-months Nehemiah was praying and planning. In the first verse of chapter 2, the plan begins to unfold.  Dangerously, he allows the king to see him sad.  The cupbearer was not to…

Nehemiah 1 Devotional by Pastor Lawrence Similar to Esther and Mordecai serving under King Xerxes a few decades prior, Nehemiah also is serving in the same capital city of Susa in Persia but under Xerxes’ son, Artaxerxes. He is a cupbearer to the king and also stood in the presence of the queen which suggests that he likely was also a eunuch. The events recorded here in the first chapter took place in the twentieth…

Luke 24 by Pastor Mark Hudson This chapter clarifies the difference between narratives in the gospel and didactic teaching in the epistles.  In this chapter, vs. 1-12 describes the followers of Christ discovering the empty tomb.  In just 12 verses!  The resurrection is the most life changing event in the history of human life.  The resurrection is the most glorious event in the Bible.  For without the resurrection, there is no Christianity.  If Christ is…

Luke 23 by Pastor David Groendyk Most chapters in the Bible could have entire books written about them, but perhaps none more so than Luke 23 and Luke 24 which recount the death and resurrection of Jesus. How do you boil down the most significant event(s) in human history to a single page? I advise you to read this chapter slowly and diligently in order to take in what Luke is telling us. What phrase…

Luke 22 Devotional by Pastor Lawrence At the close of his ministry here on earth Jesus shares with his disciples a number of minute details in advance of his suffering and crucifixion. Already he has warned his disciples three times that he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and to be delivered over to the religious leaders that they might condemn him to death, then delivered over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged and…

Luke 21 by Pastor Mark Hudson Near the end of Jesus earthly life, as He came closer to Jerusalem, He was watched like a hawk by those who wanted to do Him harm.  In 20:19-20, Luke records, “ The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hand on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them (and they were right, just not spiritually awake), but they…

Luke 19 by Pastor Mark Hudson At the end of the gospels, the tension between our Lord Jesus and religious leaders noticeably increases.  His teaching is directed to His disciples in a more positive, comforting mode but His teaching toward the religious leaders has a last chance urgency as well as a rebuke for their rejection of the Messiah. The first story is of Zacchaeus who is an example of genuine repentance and rebirth. In…

Luke 18 by Pastor David Groendyk This is the final chapter of Luke before Jesus enters into Jerusalem for his fateful final week of life. There would be no more urgent time for Jesus to press home what it looks like to be a citizen in the kingdom of God than right now. Reading through this chapter, three big themes jump out to me: the nature of true faith, the deceptiveness of self-righteousness, and the…

Luke 17 Devotional by Pastor Lawrence Bowlin In his story of the unworthy servants in vv.7-10, Jesus directly addresses the growing pride amongst his disciples who are continually arguing about who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Using the example of a master’s servant is especially appropriate since two of the most prominent disciples jockeying for first place are James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who came from a family with…

Luke 16 by Pastor Mark Hudson In this devotional, we will cover 1-13 since it is a rather tricky parable to understand.   Without going into every option or trying to explain every detail, I am confident we can discover the meaning of what Jesus is trying to explain.  The parable is about an owner of land or commodities who is told that his manager is wasting his possessions.  The owner does not fire him on…

Luke 14 by Pastor Mark Hudson We begin with Jesus calling out the hypocrites and their rules on the Sabbath. He was eating at the home of a ruler of the Pharisees.  A man who had edema which is swollen ankles, feet, or limbs was there at the home of the ruler.  Was he there to trap Jesus?  Was he planted by the Pharisees?  After all this was the Sabbath and the Pharisees wanted to…

Luke 13 by Pastor David Groendyk In a variety of different interactions and teachings, Luke 13 teaches us about the kingdom of God. In verses 1–9, Jesus presses home the urgency of repenting now while you still have the opportunity to do so. It appears that the Jewish crowds may be trying to bait Jesus into some sort of outrage by mentioning Pilate committing murder, but Jesus is having none of it. He stays on…

Luke 12 Devotional by Pastor Lawrence At the beginning of this chapter in the midst of a great crowd of people, Jesus gives his disciples this warning as of first importance: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Using a common household analogy of a simple substance like yeast that causes dough to rise and expand, Jesus warns that hypocrisy has the same ability to alter and transform a person from the…

Luke 11 by Pastor Mark Hudson We begin this chapter with the disciples asking Jesus a question, “Lord, teach us to preach.”  Or was it, “Lord, teach us to heal the sick”  or maybe “Lord, teach us to feed 5,000 people.”  No, they asked Him to teach them to pray.  Can you imagine how Jesus prayed? What a privilege to hear the Lord Jesus pray.  I would guess most of us need help praying.  So,…