We spent an hour walking through one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament tonight. Believe it or not, this strange and perplexing passage really does have application to our churches today.
Many Christians are familiar with Passover but can easily overlook the details of what happened and why. This event powerfully points forward to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Jerry, Mark, and Tyler walked through this brief but dense passage where we see the difference between the "wisdom from above" and false claim to wisdom that is actually worldly.
This passage took us into some deep and weighty places concerning God's sovereignty over Pharaoh's heart and the severity of the last plague.
Jerry, Fred, Mark and Bob McAndrew helped us better understand the dangers James warns us about regarding the words that come from our tongues.
[Mark wanted to correct a comment he made: In the New Testament both James 3:9 and 1 Corinthians 11:7 mention man being made in God's image.]
James and Paul seem to directly contradict themselves on the topic of justification. However, if we take a closer look we can see that they actually are in great harmony.
The plague of darkness picks up on a theme that runs all throughout Scripture: Are we living in the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light?
[Mark borrowed the title and opening illustration of this message from Phil Ryken's excellent commentary.]
Mark tells Caitlin's wonderful conversion story and Jerry leads us in prayer.
We all struggle with the ugly sin of showing partiality. We take a look at what is going on under the surface in these moments and how we can fight by God's grace to change.
Plague 8 is the plague of locusts. Here in this passage we get a purpose statement for the plagues that is different from the earlier ones. We already saw that God is doing this so that the nations may know. Now we are told it is that our children may know.
