Jacob, while God’s man, is a fighter. He struggled with Esau, his twin, while still in the womb. During birth, he grabbed firstborn Esau’s heel. Later, he cheated Esau out of...

Laban tricks Jacob into working another seven years for the woman he loves, Laban’s daughter Rachel. We don’t know from the passage what kind of worker Jacob is. We know that...

The kingdom of heaven is worth all that we have or ever will have. Today’s parables indicate the kingdom’s unparalleled worth. What is God’s kingdom? The kingdom of God is both...

Paul writes to the church in Rome and raises three momentous questions to help the members understand more clearly their relationship to God through the person and work of Jesus Christ....

Small beginnings mark the growth of God’s reign. A tiny, seemingly insignificant mustard seed can yield a flourishing tree—a tree large enough for birds to live in, produce buds from which...

The word thanks may be one of the most widely used words in the English language—or any language for that matter. To say thanks is to acknowledge gratitude for the generosity...

Paul eagerly desires that Christians in the church in Rome understand the role of the Spirit in overcoming weakness. Paul, no stranger to weakness himself, declares that the Spirit works as...

Jacob, a master deceiver, meets his match in Uncle Laban who one-ups Jacob and turns the tables. He leaves Jacob no choice but to concede to his demands and work another...

In the opening verses of chapter 13, the disciples question Jesus’ use of parables in preaching, to which he answers that they are stories in code. He does not preach to...

Chapter 13 begins a sequence of three sets of parables. Eugene Boring says that “in the preaching of Jesus, parables were not vivid decorations of a moralistic point but were disturbing...