Pastor Prince

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . ."  That's how Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities begins.  For most churches in today's America, it's just the worst of times!  There's no "best" to it!  That's because they're stable to declining. These churches cast about for methods and programs that will renew them, only to come up empty.  They're like patients in cardiac arrest in emergency rooms.  They're trying everything they can, including drugs, electric shock, oxygen, CPR, and more to revive the patient.  But nothing is working!   A book I discovered recently offers a good approach. It suggests that churches focus on fruitfulness.  Robert Schnase, a United Methodist pastor and bishop has written the book Five Practices of Fruitful Churches .  Schnase suggests churches focus on the concept of fruitfulness.   Fruitfulness is a great biblical image.  Numerous passage speak of the importance of bearing g

Luke begins chapter 3 by establishing the time when John the Baptist began his ministry.  He said it was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar.  That was all he had to say to establish the time, because everyone knew when that was.  But he went on to list many other leaders, including governors and high priests.  Why did he do that? Maybe it was because these are the kinds of people the world listens to.  They're the people in power, who appear to be "calling the shots."  They have many messages that they want us to hear.   But in that time, an obscure person whom these leaders would have considered a nobody had the most important message of all.  This message was the word of the Lord, and it came to John, son of Zechariah.  The message was that God's king, the Messiah, was about to appear in the world, and God's people needed to prepare! Today, that message comes to us.  We need to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord into our hearts.  W

In Luke 21, Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem.  His disciples were in awe of the beauty of the temple.  But Jesus shocked them by saying that soon, not one stone of the temple would standing on top of the other.  For the disciples, this meant the end of the world and the coming of the kingdom of God.   Jesus knew that the coming of the kingdom was more complex than his followers imagined.  He had been trying to tell them that the kingdom was entering the world through him, but they didn't understand what he was talking about.  In his discourse in Luke 21, he tried to prepare them for what was to come. The temple would be destroyed, and there would be cataclysmic events like earthquakes, wars, and more.  These were all signs of the coming kingdom.  But they were to wait patiently, because the end wouldn't come immediately.   Their job wasn't to try to nail down the time of the end.  Their job was to do the things Jesus commanded them to do.  Like love

Acts 2:42 is a snapshot of what the early church was doing.  They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.  Prayer governed everything they did.  It should do the same for us!  Through prayer, we discern God's will and receive the power to do it! Prayer should govern our learning about God.  The early Christians learned about God from the apostles' teaching,  They passed on what they had heard Jesus say and do.  Prayer should direct us in both our personal and corporate Bible study.  Before we begin to read the Bible, we should pray God would speak to us through it.  Before we go to our Sunday School or small group, we should pray that God would do the same! Prayer should govern our ministry in and through our church.  The early church did that through their fellowship, their sharing in common.  God calls each of us to minister in our churches through our spiritual gifts.  Through prayer, we discern what

People often understand prayer as a monologue.  It's an activity in which we speak to God, asking him for help.  But that's only part of prayer.  Prayer should be a dialogue between us and God. We see a prayerful dialogue in a story about the prophet Elijah, recorded in 1 Kings 19:9b-18.  Jezebel threatened Elijah's life.  Naturally, Elijah fled.  When he arrived in the desert south of Beersheba, he lay down under a broom tree and prayed to die.  But God wasn't through with him.  After he slept a while, an angel woke him up.  He said the journey was too much for him, so he offered him fresh bread and water.  Elijah slept more, and took in more bread and water. In the strength of that food, he traveled 40 days and nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.  When he got there, the Lord asked him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"   Elijah responded that he wanted to die because Jezebel and her associates had killed all the Lord's prophets, and h

Most of us Americans aren't good at waiting!  We want to get things done!  We build roads, bridges, skyscrapers, and more!  We want to rack up achievements as quickly as possible.  We accomplish much good.  But sometimes we create severe problems because we charge ahead without thinking things through or waiting until the time is right. Despite our hectic activity, sometimes God hits the "pause" button in our lives.  He brings us to a halt and calls us to wait on him. Psalm 27 expresses the hopes and prayers of someone in distress.  He's trusting the Lord, but fears those who want to harm him.  He wants God to rescue him right away, but God is moving according to his own timetable! In v. 14, he calls on himself to wait on the Lord.  His waiting isn't passive.  It's done in active anticipation and prayer.  He's waiting prayerfully! Sometimes God calls us to act immediately.  To forge ahead and accomplish what he wants us to do. But at other time

In the popular Netflix series "Stranger Things," there's an alternate dimension called "The Upside Down."  As I read the gospels, I think sometimes Jesus' disciples thought they were living in "The Upside Down"!  That's because Jesus looked at things from God's perspective, which was often radically different from the way we look at them. One of those times must of been when they were sitting in the temple courts not long before Jesus was crucified.  Mark 12:41-44 describes it.  They were in the area where people gave monetary offerings.  The disciples were impressed by the rich folks who walked by and tossed in their offerings.  They appeared to be giving generous, sacrificial gifts. But Jesus redirected their attention to a poor widow.  She went to the jar and put in two small copper coins.  They contained less copper than our pennies.  From a monetary perspective, they were practically worthless. Jesus drew his disciples aside a

What motivates our greatest generosity?  Guilt?  Duty?  Need?  In John 12:1-6, we find that the motivation for the most profound generosity is love. It was the Saturday before the Friday on which Jesus was crucified.  Jesus' friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were having a dinner in Jesus' honor.  Jesus recently raised Lazarus from the dead.  It must have been a joyous celebration, though Jesus knew the time of his passion was near. When they ate in those days, they didn't sit in chairs.  Instead, they reclined on pillows or couches around low tables.  Their heads were at the table, while their feet were away from it.  Martha was serving the meal.  Lazarus was at the table with everyone else. While dinner was going on, Mary entered the room, carrying an alabaster jar.  She went to Jesus' feet, broke open the jar, and poured its contents on Jesus' feet.  The smell of fragrant perfume filled the room where they were gathered, along with the whole house

The Bible's Big Story about God's mission to save the world comes to a climax in the last 3 chapters of the book of Revelation.  At the end of chapter 20, God resurrects the dead, and they stand in judgment before him as he sits on the great white throne.  He has great books opened, which record the deeds of each person.  But the final determination of judgment is whether the person's name is recorded in the book of life.  The book of life contains the names of those who've followed Christ. At the beginning of chapter 20, God resurrects creation, which has been subject to decay because of human sin.  Then he sends down the New Jerusalem, the eternal home of his resurrected people.  This city comes down to earth, where his people will live.  God is present in this city, so no temple is needed.  The divine and human realms come together. God declares that a new time has come, in which he will wipe every tear from every eye, and there will be no more sicknes

How do we gain a right relationship with God?  This is a fundamental religious question.  In Acts 15, we find the early church wrestling with it. The debate started in the church in Antioch.  Paul and Barnabas were working there and the church was growing rapidly.  Gentiles were entering the church through faith in Christ.  God had already shown that he accepted Gentiles as they were, and that they didn't need to become Jews in order to be saved (see Acts10:1ff).  Yet a group of Jewish Christ followers from Jerusalem arrived in Antioch and began to teach the Gentiles that they needed to be circumcised and follow the Old Testament law to be saved. This discouraged and confused the new Christ followers in the church.  Paul and Barnabas promptly travelled to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and elders to get clarity on the situation.  When they arrived in the city, they shared with church leaders what God was doing in Antioch and elsewhere.  But some in the church r

What do you do when God does something completely unexpected and wonderful?  In the story of the apostle Peter's vision at Joppa, God did something like that. The story starts at the beginning of Acts 10.  A God-fearing Roman Centurion living in Caesarea named Cornelius has a vision of a an angel.  The angel tells him to send to Joppa for a man called Peter, who's staying at the house of Simon the tanner.  Cornelius immediately dispatched two servants and one of his aides to go to Joppa. The following day, around noon, the three men are nearing Joppa.  While people are preparing the big meal of the day, Peter goes up on the roof to pray.  Though he's hungry, he falls into a trance.  In the trance, he has a vision of a large sheet coming down from heaven.  In the sheet are all kinds of unclean animals, animals the Jewish law said Peter should never eat.  A voice called out, "Arise, Peter, kill and eat." Peter recoiled at the command.  Observance of

In the ancient world, life was bookended by breath.  They believed life began when babies were born and took in their first breath.  Life ended when a person made their last, long, exhale. In Genesis 2, Adam becomes a living being when God breathes into his lifeless body.   Acts 2 describes the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  It was like the birth of the church.  Jesus had commanded his followers to remain in Jerusalem to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  He told them that when the Spirit came, they would be his witnesses to the world. It begins with the sound of a rushing wind.  In Greek, the word used here for "wind," also means "spirit," and "breath."  The terms were closely linked in ancient minds.  What happens here blends them all.   Following the wind, they saw what appeared to be tongues of fire that fell on each of Jesus' followers. The fact that they looked like tongues suggest they were receiving power

Matthew 28:16ff says that after Jesus' resurrection, the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus told them to go.  When they went there, he appeared to them and gave them a commission.  They were to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything he had commanded them.   One verb in his commission is in the imperative tense, which was like putting it in bold face.  It was "make disciples."  A disciple is a person who comes under the discipline of a master.  In Jesus' time, people learned by attaching themselves to a teacher.  They spent their days with him, following him around and learning from him.  Their goal was to think, speak, and act like their masters.   Jesus' disciples were to be disciple makers themselves.  This disciple-making process had two components: baptism and teaching.  They were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, meaning that they were dem

The climax of the Big Story of the Bible is Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.  It's easy to think of these as two distinct events, but they're two parts of one event.  In it, God provided for the redemption of humanity. "Woman, why are you crying?" is the question highlighted in John's account of the resurrection (20:1-18).  Mary Magdalene went to Jesus' tomb early on Sunday morning, and found the stone rolled away.  Assuming Jesus' body had been stolen, she ran to Peter and John, and told them what she had seen. They ran to the tomb.  John arrived first, but waited outside the entrance.  Peter, true to his impulsive nature, strode right in the tomb when he arrived.  John followed him. As Peter looked around, he saw Jesus' burial clothes neatly arranged.  That seemed to rule out grave robbers, because they wouldn't have left them that way.  John looked around and believed .  The account doesn't say what he believed, but i

God's Big Story has a climax.  This climax is Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.  Everything that happened before these prepared the way for them.  Everything that happened after was built on them.  What was happening when Jesus was crucified?  That's a question theologians have pondered for thousands of years?  None of us can comprehend all that was going on in those hours.  Jesus' followers didn't understand at the time.  They would begin to understand only after the resurrection. Two key words the New Testament uses to tell about what was going on when Jesus died on the cross are "redemption" and "reconciliation." In Romans 3:22b-26, the apostle Paul says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by the redemption that came by his grace in Christ.  "Justified" means to be declared "not guilty."  "Redemption" is to be freed of a debt.   In the ancient

How do you sum up the things Jesus did during his earthly ministry?  Sounds impossible to do!  But Matthew did it in Matthew 4:23-25.  He said Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom, taught people how to be kingdom citizens, and showed the kingdom had come by healing diseases. He preached the good news of the kingdom.  The kingdom was the kingdom of God.  Jesus talked about it all the time.  The Bible teaches that at the end of the world, God will bring his kingdom to earth.  He will establish his kingdom through his Anointed One, his Messiah.  In this kingdom, he will right all wrongs, and establish his peace and love.   The good news Jesus proclaimed about the kingdom was that it was entering the world through him.  In Luke 17:20-21, he said that the kingdom wasn't coming by careful observation.  It wasn't in a geographical location.  Instead, it was in human hearts.  People entered God's kingdom when they put their faith in Christ. Citizens of God's

One of the prominent themes of the gospel of Luke is that Jesus came to bless the poor and marginalized.  The Virgin Mary is a poor, unknown woman in Nazareth.  God announces Jesus' birth to a group of shepherds out in the field.   Luke continues that theme in his account of Jesus' sermon at Nazareth in 4:14-30.  It's Jesus' first sermon in the gospel, giving it prominence.  It sets the theme of Jesus' public ministry.  The fact that it takes place in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth gives it particular importance. Jesus is in a synagogue at Nazareth on the Sabbath.  They hand the scroll of Isaiah to him, and he turns to what we know as 61:1-2.  This is one of the "Servant Songs" of Isaiah, which tell about a special servant of the Lord.  Many in Jesus' time connected them to the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would establish God's kingdom on earth.   Jesus reads the passage, in which the servant says that he came to proclaim good n

Following his baptism, the Holy Spirit fell on Jesus, giving him the power to fulfill the mission God gave him.  In the power of the Spirit, Jesus went into the desert, where he defined the kind of Messiah he would be.  This definition came through the devil's temptations. Luke's account of these temptations are in 4:1-13.  In the first, the devil said to Jesus, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread."  Jesus was starving, so this temptation had to be particularly compelling!   Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.  People don't live by bread alone, but by God's words!   Here, Satan was tempting Jesus to be a material Messiah.  This is the kind of Messiah people want!  John 6:14-15 records that following the feeding of the 5000, the crowd wanted to make Jesus king by force.  And why not?  If he could produce food like that, they would never again need to struggle to get food! We like material Messiahs today.  Many peo

It would be easy to pass over Jesus' baptism in the Bible's Big Story of God's mission to save the world.  It seems so simple and small-scale.  Yet it was a key moment in Jesus' life and therefore a key moment in the Big Story. One day, John the Baptist is shocked to see Jesus in the line for baptism.  John protests, saying that their roles should be reversed.  Jesus should be baptizing him!  But Jesus said they needed to do this to "fulfill all righteousness."  We don't know all that means, but it appears to mean that submitting to John's baptism was important for Jesus to do.  By receiving his baptism, he connected himself to John and his ministry, and by extension, to God's Big Story. This was a pivotal moment in that it marked the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.  We don't know much about what Jesus did before this point.  That's probably because he led an unremarkable life.  The comments of people from his hometown

The Big Story of the Bible is about God's mission to save the world.  In the first chapter of his gospel, Luke gives signs that something huge was about to happen in that story.  In the first part of that chapter, he tells about the birth of John the Baptist.  In the second part, he tells about a visit of the angel Gabriel to Nazareth in Galilee.  Gabriel goes to a young virgin named Mary and tells her that God has chosen her to be the mother of the Messiah, God's Anointed One.  He will sit on the throne of his father David and reign forever. In the second chapter of Luke, the huge thing happens.  It's the event to which everything in the Big Story has been leading up to: the birth of Jesus Christ! Joseph and Mary have to go to Bethlehem, King David's ancestral home, to register for a census.  While there, Mary gives birth to Jesus.  He has to be born in a dwelling for animals because there was no other place in the town for them to stay.   In nearby

Matthew 16:17-19 gives us a glimpse into God's dream for his church.  Jesus quizzed his followers about who they thought he was, and Simon Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus blessed him and give him a nickname.  The disciple's real name was Simon, son of Jonah.  But Jesus gave him the nickname Peter ( petros ), which means "rock."  Jesus said, "You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church." Jesus continued by saying, "And the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."  Many people misunderstand what Jesus meant.  They picture the church as an unassailable fortress on a mountain.  The forces of hell gather against it, but they can't prevail.  But that's not Jesus' picture.  Gates don't attack.  They're defended!  The picture is of the church attacking the gates of death itself. Those gates won't prevail against it! How would the church prevail?  By using

Many of us learned the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-100 when we were children.  We know about the "wee little man" who climbed the sycamore tree to see what he could see.  We know that Jesus told him to "come down" because he was going to his house that day. But if that's all you know about this story, you're missing a lot!  Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and wealthy.  He was an outcast who worked with the hated Gentile government.  Also, tax collectors were notoriously corrupt.  Most likely, Zacchaeus had said no to God and to his people. Despite the tax collector's reputation as a social outcast, Jesus invited himself to his house.  He said yes to the tax collector.  He loved him, was for him. When Jesus said yes to Zacchaeus, the people said no, no, no!!!  They derisively said of Jesus, "This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them!"  Decent people said no to people like this tax collector.  To love him, to say yes to him,

The Bible presents at least four foundational truths that are critical to the church's mission.  Truth one is that God loves you as your are.  John 3:16 says that God loves the world so much, he gave his unique Son so that those who put their faith in him will have everlasting life.  1 John 4:7 says that God proved his love for you by sending his Son to die for you.  He loves you as you are.  He's for you! Truth two is: God has given you a group of people who are for you.  It's the church!  A church isn't a building.  It's group of people gathered to continue Jesus' work in the world.  John 13:34 says Jesus commanded his followers to love each other as he loved them.  God gave you the church to love and nurture you.  He also wants you to love and nurture others in the church.  You should be for your brothers and sisters in Christ! Truth three is God loves everybody.  He's for everybody. John 3:16 emphasizes this truth!  He loves you, but he does

One of the most remarkable stories in history is the return of the Israelites to Judea after their exile in Babylonia.  The two main heroes of that time were Nehemiah and Ezra, and the books named after them are our primary sources of information about what happened during that time. The book of Nehemiah tells the story of how an Israelite official in the court of the Persian King Artaxerxes became concerned about the desperate situation of his people in Jerusalem.  The king granted him permission to go to Jerusalem and assist in rebuilding the city.  Despite meagre resources and opposition from non-Israelites in the region of Jerusalem, Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of the city. The book of Ezra focuses on the story of the rebuilding of the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.  Ezra 1:1ff tells how the Persian King Cyrus, who had conquered the Babylonians, ordered that the Israelites be allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild its temple.  The slow, difficult work began, with

Covenants are critical parts of the Big Story of the Bible.  They include God's covenant with all living after the great flood in Noah's time, his covenant with Abraham, his covenant with the nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai, and his covenant with David.   God's covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai governed his relationship with the nation of Israel.  The Bible describes that covenant in Exodus 19:1ff.  God came to his people and entered a special relationship with them.  He said he would be their God and they would be his people as long as they obeyed his commands. God's most important commands required his people him alone.  Since he was committing himself to them, worshipping other gods would be spiritual adultery. Sadly, the Israelites failed to worship the Lord alone.  They engaged in idol worship, including horrible practices like child sacrifice.  For this reason, the Lord sent prophets to warn his people that if they didn't change, he would destroy th

Part of the Big Story of the Bible concerns suffering.  The earliest idea about suffering seems to have been related to the idea that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked (See Psalm 1).  If people were suffering, it was because God was punishing them for their sins. But then Job comes along.  The book of Job is a deep dive into suffering.  Job suffered, yet he was a righteous man.  His friends say he needs to acknowledge his sin.  But he debates with them, maintaining his innocence and protesting his suffering.  In the end, God appears and condemns Job's friends, who had been standing up for him.  The final message of the book is that sometimes the righteous suffer, but they may never know why. Then, Isaiah 52:13-53:12 comes along and takes the conversation about suffering to a whole new level.  This passage is part of a group of "Servant Songs" in Isaiah.  As they begin, they appear to describe corporate Israel.  But by the time they get to chapter 52

One of the many things I love about the book of Psalms is that it expresses a wide range of emotions.  We find psalms of joy, sorrow, worry, worship, and aspiration.  For me, many of the most compelling psalms are those that express unvarnished feelings.  They show that the people God used to write the Bible had the same feelings we do! One of the most sorrowful and bitter psalms is Psalm 137.  It expresses the feelings of the Israelites when they were in exile in Babylon.  They sat and wept by the rivers of that place, feeling the pain of their loss, and the words and actions of their tormentors.  They comfort themselves with the thought of someone taking the infants of their enemies and dashing them against rocks!   The exile was a critical part of God's mission to save the world because during it the Israelites wrestled with questions that would prepare the way for the coming of Christ.   A first question was, "Has our God been defeated?"  Many ancient

"When are we going to get there?"  "How much farther?"  All of us have heard those questions from our kids on long trips!  Or have said them ourselves!  Imagine how it would be if your trip took 40 years. That's how it was for the Israelites! Their journey started when God freed them from slavery in Egypt.  It continued to Mt. Sinai, where God made a covenant with them.  From there, they journeyed to the southwestern side of Canaan.  At God's direction, Moses sent 12 spies into Canaan.  They came back with a great report about the beauty and fertility of the land.  But there were big problems.  The Canaanites had soldiers that looked like giants, and their cities were heavily fortified.  Most of the spies said they couldn't take the land. The Israelites did what we often do in a crisis.  They had a meltdown!  They lamented that they ever left Egypt and griped that Moses had taken them all that way to die.  One spy, Caleb, said they could take th

The Big Story of the Bible is about God's mission to save the world.  The biggest, most important story about this mission in the Old Testament is the exodus. The book of Exodus tells us about God's mission to save Israel from slavery in Egypt, and to use it as his vehicle to save the world.   God called Moses to be his instrument of deliverance.  He used him to send a series of plagues against Egypt.  It was God against Pharaoh, who thought of himself as a god!  After the tenth plague, in which God put to death the first born of the Egyptians, Pharaoh let the Israelites go.  The Israelites packed up quickly and headed toward the Sinai Desert.   When Pharaoh changed his mind and tried to pursue them, God parted the sea for his people, but closed it on the Egyptian army, destroying it. The Lord provided for Israel as it made its journey to Sinai, the mountain of God.  When they got there, God reminded them that he had saved them and brought them safely to him. 

Moses had settled into the life of a nomadic shepherd in Midian.  He had married Zipporah, one of Jethro's daughters, and spent his days tending Jethro's sheep.  He tried and failed to be a deliverer of his people (see Ex. 2:11ff), and Egypt had become a distant, bitter memory. Then, one day, something happened that changed not only his life, but also world history.  While he was tending sheep near Horeb, the mountain of God, he saw a bush that appeared to burn, yet not to burn up! When he went to investigate it, God spoke to him from the bush.  He told Moses that he had seen the oppression of his people and was going to do something about it.  He told Moses that he wanted to use him to deliver the Israelites! Moses was stunned, and struggled with this call.  He offered excuse after excuse, and God answered each one!  Finally, Moses said, "Send someone else!"  Moses didn't want to go.  Who could blame him?  Pharaoh was one of the most powerful rulers in t