Mark Chapter 15

Together with chapter 16, these events are the most important in all of human history.

"Very early in the morning..." Timing is everything. Of course, it's not normal for someone to be on trial all night, but the Jewish leaders are in a hurry. This needs to be done before Passover. How ironic that God Himself will be killed promptly so that the celebration of His rescue of His people won't be tainted by a public execution. Passover is also on Saturday, the Sabbath day of rest, the day God rested from his work of creation. Do you see the irony here? Jesus will breathe his last breath on the cross on Friday and say, just as He did after 6 days of creation, "It is finished." The world will be made again. He will rescue his people from slavery...again. Jesus chooses the exact time and place of his crucifixion, with layer upon layer of meaning.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus cries out in agony...but there is more. Jesus takes the sin of the world upon himself and his Father turns away from him...but there is more. Even at this moment--perhaps especially at this moment--Jesus chooses his words carefully. He is quoting Psalm 22, perhaps the most powerful prophecy of the crucifixion in all of the Old Testament. It describes in great detail the events of the crucifixion, hundreds of years before the fact and prior to the invention of crucifixion as a form of capital punishment. More importantly, it also describes resurrection. Psalm 22 begins in agony, but ends in victory. Jesus is predicting his resurrection, and this fact is certainly not lost on the people most familiar with the Old Testament: the Jewish council and the Pharisees. Even as he's hanging there on the verge of death, Jesus is saying to them, "This isn't over. Remember the rest of Psalm 22?"

For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.

The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn:

He has done it!

Mark Chapter 13

"Be alert!" - Jesus in Mark 13:33

How much longer will this world last? What are the signs that the end is near? It seems these questions have not worn out over 2,000 years. They are still being asked today, just as the disciples asked them of Jesus.

Do you want the world to end, or for Jesus to return soon? If you're reading this, my guess is that your answer is "not yet." We live very comfortable lives in this world, relative to most and relative to history. We still want to see our kids grow up, experience retirement, travel, meet our soulmate, or make our mark in the world. We believe we have things to look forward to in this life. But many people don't and have not: slaves, the poor, those with severe illnesses, people living under oppression. Others have also desired his return: people who have fallen so deeply for Jesus that they're willing to stay here if he wants them to, but they'd be just as well to be with him and leave even the best things about this world. I've had the privilege of knowing a few people like that in my life, and they are a joy to be around. They see life differently than the rest of us - they hold on loosely, love extremely, and have a freedom that comes from not being a stakeholder in the things that produce the lines on the rest of our faces.

Jon Foreman of Switchfoot calls it "the beautiful letdown."

It was a beautiful letdown the day I knew
All the riches this world had to offer me would never do
In a world full of bitter pain and bitter doubt
I was trying so hard to fit in, to fit in, until I found out
That I don't belong here

Can you relate to that? I don't ask the question to induce guilt. I can relate to it at times, but not always. Sometimes I love this life. I love the people and yes, even the things God has blessed me with, and I don't think that's wrong (up to a point). But Jesus reminds us all in Mark 13 that the people can't save us and the things are temporary. Some of it will crash dramatically, like the temple in Jerusalem. Some will slowly fade away. But it will all be gone. When that day comes -- and it could be any time -- are you and I ready? Are we alert? Do we have something -- I should say someone -- to hold on to that will never pass away?

Note: Jesus uses the strange phrase "abomination that causes desolation" in verse 14. This is a reference to prophecies of the coming Messiah in Daniel (see Daniel 9:26-27) in which the Anointed One is killed and another ruler destroys the city and the temple. Jesus is obviously predicting his own death, and possibly also the physical destruction of the temple which occurred in 70 AD.

Mark Chapter 10

"Who then can be saved?" -verse 26

Jesus establishes an impossible standard. Divorce is the same as adultery. Sell everything you own. These teachings are in line with others found in the other gospels, where Jesus equates lust with adultery and hate with murder. The question the disciples inevitably ask is the one we all ask when faced with Jesus' standard: who then can be saved? We know human nature too well. Not even the best among us can achieve it.

If you recall Jesus' encounter with the Greek woman in Mark 7:24-30, I think you can start to see a pattern in Jesus' teaching. He openly offended her--not from malice, but as a method of moving her heart and mind to a place where he could perform a miracle in her life. His words to her reminded her of her utter helplessness and dependence upon him. When she accepted it, he healed her daughter. I see the same thing in these teachings in chapter 10. Jesus delivers impossibly difficult teachings that, if accepted, render us helpless. Yes, we resent them. Yes, they are offensive. And they leave us only two choices: to reject them and walk away, as the man did in verse 22, or to stand in Jesus' presence and utter our own helplessness, as the disciples did in verse 26. And at that moment, just as he did with the Greek woman, Jesus delivered hope: "With human beings this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

I think about how close the wealthy young man was to life. If he had stayed only minutes longer, he would have heard those words. He didn't have to achieve the standard Jesus set for him, he only had to acknowledge that he couldn't reach it.

How many times do our efforts to justify ourselves prevent us from experiencing life? How often do we walk away sad, when all we have to do is acknowledge our dependence on God? It's one of the great paradoxes of following Christ. The impossible becomes possible at the moment we let go, the moment we humble ourselves, the moment we admit we're powerless. Little if anything is possible on our own strength, but all things are possible with God.

Mark 9

John spoke up, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”

Jesus wasn’t pleased. “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.

“On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.

Mark 9:38-42

Mark 9 is a loaded chapter, to say the least. I was drawn by all 5 of the teachable passages (could be more). I have chosen to process with you through one of them, though.

Admittedly, I have a problem with criticism. I have a bit of what I've been told is a gift of discernment. Unfortunately, I have not matured in that gift, completely. It's easy for me to see the good in someone and to embrace that person no matter what they may look like on the outside. However, I can also easily see the bad in someone, and in the words of the great theologian, Bon Qui Qui, "CUT them." My passion and desire to be more like Jesus has turned my criticism 180 degrees in my life though. When I first became a Christ-follower, I would criticize those who didn't know Jesus and felt like it was my duty as a Christian to point out faults and turn them to Jesus. Now, I feel more compassion, mercy and grace flowing to those very people, and less and less flowing to the "Christians" in my culture.

What I hear being said to me in this passage is simple. Quit criticizing those who are acting in my name, and on my behalf just because you don't agree with their methods. If they are not my enemies, then they are my allies. Okay, I hear that, but...

No "buts." No matter if I agree or if I get it, it's clear. If someone is not preaching against Jesus, then I should praise God for them. I don't have to agree with their methodology, I don't have to trust them...I have to trust Him.

It is very interesting that Jesus calls these new Christ-followers, "simple child-like believers." My response to them is crucial. If I keep them from doing any work or ministry "in Jesus' name," then I am guilty. This is serious.

Father, I want to trust you with all of your 'ministers.' You know hearts and you know motives. Even in the most awkward moments, may your light shine through them, as I pray it shines through me when my heart is not right and motives are not pure. None of us are perfect and all of us need you to re-interpret our messages to the hearts of the people you want to reach. May I live in that trust more today, than I did yesterday.

Mark Chapter 7

Jesus did more to impart value to people, and elevate the status of oppressed groups, than anyone who has ever lived. This chapter offers some classic examples.

The disciples were not criticized in verse 2 for eating with dirty hands. They were criticized for not upholding the Pharisees' racist views. Their tradition held that Jews, as well as any cups and dishes they used, were ceremonially defiled through contact with Gentiles (non-Jews), and therefore must be washed before coming in contact with food. Jewish ceremonial washings were institutionalized racism with religious reinforcement. They were a daily, public reminder that all non-Jews were dirt. Gentiles, women, people with diseases or deformities, and anyone who associated with such people (especially anyone who ate with them) were considered "unclean." Basically, if you weren't a healthy, religious Jewish male who obeyed all the rules, you were nobody.

So Jesus' next miracle healing is, of course, the daughter of a Greek woman. Check mate.

His conversation with her (which itself was forbidden) is fascinating. In keeping with first-century racism, Jesus refers to the Jews as "the children" in verse 27 and Greeks as "dogs." That's really offensive. I don't know that I understand all the reasons why he would address her in this way, but these are the words she would expect to hear from a Jewish man and Jesus chooses to mouth them to see how she will respond. She accepts the humiliation; she would accept anything for her daughter's sake, and she obviously believes Jesus can heal her. And Jesus' response, and the subsequent healing of her daughter, tells her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't consider her a second-class citizen.

Jesus is gaining a following outside the Jewish circle, and he is not turning them away. This had to take even the disciples by surprise, and this internal struggle escalates all the way into the life of the early church, when thousands of Gentiles begin embracing the Christian faith, forcing the Jewish Christians to re-evaluate their identity as God's chosen people.

At the same time, Jesus often seems to work inside the status quo, even as he shakes things up. He eats with "sinners" and talks to Greeks and women, but he doesn't attempt to immediately shatter all the societal barriers that suppress them. Some healing was immediate; some is still in process to this day, especially when we have a role to play. Lord, we long for the day when your plan is fulfulled, and "there is no slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus."

Mark Chapter 6

"He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith."
verses 5-6

Jesus hit a wall in his hometown. We know little about his life from age 12 to 30, and can safely assume that he kept a low profile through these years. In verse 3, the townspeople refer to him as the carpenter, not the carpenter's son, giving us a clue that he had taken up his stepfather's trade in early adulthood. Did he perform miracles during this time? Did he engage his own family and friends with amazing teaching? Perhaps, but this story indicates that his life wasn't too far from average. His brothers were not convinced of his divinity until after his resurrection.

So imagine the townspeople's surprise when, at around 30 years of age, Jesus comes home and announces he is the Messiah. His teachings and miracles are no less amazing, but they are received differently here because these people have a history with Jesus, and it doesn't include him being the Son of God. They can't get past the years of preconditioning that tells them he is just a carpenter, one of 5 brothers who grew up in the area.

I am thankful for the Christian upbringing I received. I was introduced to Jesus at an early age, and I avoided many painful experiences because of it. At the same time, I recognize that because I have been immersed in Christianity and church life since toddlerhood, I have developed what author Philip Yancey calls "immunity to the gospel." I don't expect the ground to move beneath my feet when I hear or read about Jesus, simply because I've heard about him so many times. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in my life (40 Sundays a year for 30 years = 1200 church services), I've watched rooms full of people hear the gospel and not be moved. My years of preconditioning have made me calloused to the greatest message and the greatest person in the history or the world--and I count myself among his followers.

Perhaps for this reason, some of the Christ-followers I admire most came to faith in Jesus as adults, and many of them had little or no connection to the church earlier in life. One who stands out is John Tinsley, who became a Christian in middle age. He had never read the Bible before. His first Bible study was the book of Acts, which tells the story of the dramatic spread of Christianity throughout the world. John did not know, as most Christians do, that you are supposed to read Acts merely as an historical document and not actually do what the first Christians did. He kept asking why Christians did not live today like those in Acts did, and his group had no answer for him. So John and his wife Gretchen packed their bags and moved to Romania, where I found him planting churches in that formerly communist country. He did so, in part, because he hadn't been preconditioned not to. He was not immune to the gospel, and neither were the people in the Romanian towns and villages who were hearing about Jesus for the first time.

Thankfully, there are antidotes to gospel immunity. God answers the prayer to be re-awakened to the wonder of Jesus. Reading Mark can chip the crust off of our hearts as we're re-introduced to him. As you read of his miracles, his radical life, his unique teaching, and perhaps most of all his relationships and his intense love for people, guard yourself from being unaffected or unmoved. Jesus is still amazing, and familiarity doesn't change that.

Mark Chapter 5

Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

-verse 17

How do you picture Jesus?

To some, Jesus is their homeboy. To others, Jesus is their co-pilot. Maybe Jesus is just alright. What if he was just one of us, just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home? 2,000 years after his life, and armed only with some sketchy information about him, imaginations and personal desires take over and Jesus becomes someone different to each of us. Today, Jesus is apparently whatever we want him to be, whatever image brings the most comfort. He's your own personal Jesus.

One of the great theologians of our time, Cal Naughton Jr. from the movie Talladega Nights, captures this sentiment:

• "I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party. "
• "I like to think of Jesus like with giant eagles wings, and singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an angel band and I'm in the front row and I'm hammered drunk!"
• "I like to think of Jesus as a mischievous badger."
• "I like to picture Jesus as a figure skater. He wears like a white outfit, and He does interpretive ice dances of my life's journey."
  

I think Jesus has a sense of humor, and I hope he's laughing (because I am). If you've seen the movie, you probably remember the family prayer scene where Ricky and Carley Bobby have an argument over which Jesus to pray to; Bobby prefers the "Christmas Jesus," as he calls him, the baby Jesus. I think most people do. Babies are cute, and innocent, and represent life and promise and possibilities. They also happen to be helpless, harmless, and powerless. They can't get in your grill. They haven't learned how to say "no." They don't intimidate, and they're perfect when they're sleeping.

This is one of the reasons why reading Mark is so important. Reading Mark and the other gospels puts us in touch with the real, actual Jesus, who is not a picture and did not remain a baby. And while it's true that his love for people has always been beyond comprehension, he can also be intimidating. He's beyond us, more powerful than we are. He can't be controlled or manipulated. He can even be scary. If we're honest, none of us wants him around all the time.

So we shouldn't be surprised that a group of people, privileged to be eye-witnesses to one of Jesus' miracles, begged him to leave town. He cost them money. He was a powerful force they could not understand. He could not be controlled. How could you just go on with your life as usual with someone like that around?

During his ministry, people were constantly trying to make Jesus what they wanted him to be: a political leader, a criminal, a tool to obtain power for themselves, a crazy person or perhaps even demon-possessed. But Jesus always defied definition and could not be suppressed, even in death! He came to people as they were, but those same people had to follow him on his terms. Those who did were changed forever.

Don't settle for a picture. In the pages of Mark, wrestle with Jesus as he actually was and is. Jesus isn't everything you or I want him to be. He is so much more than that.

Mark Chapter 4

He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

-verse 34

I wonder how this must have felt to the disciples. At times they must have felt stupid when Jesus said things like, "don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?" (verse 13). But on balance they must have felt privileged to be among the select few who received a more detailed explanation. How did they process this privileged status? Surely Jesus wanted the whole world to understand his message. Why, then, wouldn't he do whatever it took to make sure everyone understood?

Jesus explains this to the disciples in verses 11-12. While doing so, he quotes Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah's famous vision of heaven in which God sends him out with a prophetic message. Take a look at Isaiah 6:9-13, and note the points of God's message to Isaiah:

• Most people will be hardened to God's message and unable to understand or accept it, even though they hear it and have opportunity (verses 9-10);
• Such people will not avoid the catastrophe that comes from being alienated from God (verses 11-12)'
• A small percentage, however, of faithful people will remain, hear, understand, and respond to God. Not only will they be preserved, but God's people and His movement will be rebuilt from this group.

Jesus seems to be likening his disciples to the last group, and implying that although everyone has an opportunity to hear, most are too calloused to his message to receive it. He may even imply that when confronted with his message, listeners are often hardened by being forced to respond to it. The Parable of the Sower in Mark 4 has a similar message. If Jesus is the farmer, he is spreading the seed everywhere, but he recognizes some soils are going to be especially productive, and he cultivates there.

In these parables Jesus stresses the point that he doesn't force his way on anyone. If you or I choose not to allow the seed of his message to take root, we have that prerogative. But where his message is germinating and growing, he's going to work the soil and make it flourish.

Just like the first disciples, we can take this idea too far and think of ourselves more highly than we should, as if we have somehow merited extra attention by God. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything we, like the disciples, have been given extra responsibility as carriers of his message. Nor does the story imply that some people are too far gone to respond to Christ. In Romans 11:7-12, the apostle Paul references the same passage in Isaiah 6 and emphatically states that no one is "beyond recovery" (v. 11), not even those who have previously rejected Christ.

Jesus loves everyone, but he's also strategic. He cultivates where it's going to be productive. He doesn't just throw everything on the wall to see what sticks. We should be the same: loving everyone but investing strategically. Who benefits from your strategic investments? Who is ready to be cultivated in your life?

Mark Chapter 3

"Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus." v. 6

It's only chapter 3, and people are already trying to kill him. I don't think we see Jesus' life and ministry in this context often enough. Most of his 3 years of ministry were lived with a constant threat of death. It wasn't something that suddenly popped up in Jerusalem at the end. It would be appropriate to read the rest of Mark with the understanding that everywhere Jesus goes, he is being watched; everything he says is being studied, looking for any opportunity to take him out. He is a threat to the religious establishment and is seen by both the Roman and Jewish governments as an unnecessary disruption. Let that be a lesson to us all. Stakeholders in the status quo will always be threatened by the true Christ-life. We certainly want to live at peace with everyone and even be winsome to as many as possible, but everyone did not love Jesus and everyone will not love us if we follow Him.

Chapter 3 includes stories of opposition to Jesus, with the account of his appointment of the twelve disciples sandwiched in the middle. I don't think this is an accident. With so many against him, including his own family at times, Jesus withdrew and surrounded himself with an inner circle of followers who were for him (as much as human frailty allowed them to be). He built a team to accomplish his mission, but he also wanted a team because it is replenishing to the soul. "That they might be with him" in verse 14 is an important purpose statement. The disciples weren't just there for ministry training, they were there to be together and to be with Jesus. Especially in the hard times, that inner circle is essential.

Who is in your inner circle? When the world presses in, can you fall back on a safe group of close friends? There is no question whether you'll need each other.

I'll be teaching more on this at our Sunday gathering, so stay tuned. And since I'm preparing for that teaching, please give me your perspective on verses 13-19 or your own experiences with your inner circle of friends.

Mark Chapter 2

Levi the tax collector, who Jesus calls to be his disciple in verse 14, is the famous apostle later known as Matthew. The name Matthew, which means "gift of the Lord," may have been given to him by Jesus (as he gave Simon the name Peter, "the Rock") or the other disciples. Matthew was a new man as a follower of Christ, with a new name to go with it. I love how the names the disciples were given helped them to see themselves as Jesus saw them.

Tax collectors in any culture are unpopular, but in first century Israel they were hated and condemned. They were Jews betraying their own people by doing the bidding of the hated Roman occupiers; and they were thieves, lining their own pockets as they collected taxes. They were outcasts in Jewish society: they were not allowed in the synagogue, essentially kicked out of Jewish religious life; they could not serve as witnesses in a trial because their word was assumed to be worthless. Their only friends were other tax collectors. No respectable Jew would be caught associating with a tax collector, but Jesus seemed to have little interest in being respectable.

Jesus found Levi at his booth, probably a toll booth for the road between Egypt and Damascus called "The Way of the Sea." (Jesus' association with this road is actually prophesied in Isaiah 9:1). Merely speaking to Levi would have made an impression; asking him to become his disciple was completely absurd. A tax collector would never have been allowed to become a disciple of a great teacher. Jesus is ruining his own reputation by filling his ranks with such people. His reputation is further soiled by joining Levi for dinner at his home, then completely trashed when Levi's friends arrive. Sharing a meal with someone was the highest expression of friendship--a tradition we carry on today at the Springs.

To his community, this man was Levi the tax collector, Levi the thief, the traitor. Nothing sticks like a bad reputation. But to Jesus, he was Matthew, the gift of the Lord. Matthew, the friend. Matthew, the man who would bring his friends to Jesus, who would one day be an eyewitness to Jesus' resurrection, who would write the gospel that bears his new name and become a hero of the faith. Jesus does not see what most men and women see in others or even in themselves. Jesus saw Matthew, and sees each of us, as the gift he made us to be, as the people we can become if we follow him.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? The failure, the fraud, the afraid, the hopelessly average? Do you see a reputation you'll never be able to escape? Jesus never sees that. He sees the person he created you to be, and that person has a name you may have never heard before: gift, treasure, rock, hero, princess, beloved. Following Jesus is the adventure in which you discover your true identity.

Mark Chapter 1

I'm glad you're jumping into Mark's gospel! Allowing Mark to take us on a walk with Christ through his 3 years of ministry, his death and resurrection, can be a life-changing experience. I hope you're starting with a sense of anticipation. Whether this is your first time to read the Bible or you've been reading Scripture all your life, we will all know Jesus better and understand Him differently after this experience.

Brad and I (Cameron) will be posting comments about one chapter each weekday from now through Easter. Most chapters, including chapter 1, contain multiple events in Jesus' life, and I'll often comment on only one of them. But if you have questions or comments about any part of the chapter, I encourage you to post them. Now let's get started...

v.22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

I was a sophomore in college in 1987. Two years later, students my age would be celebrating atop the Berlin wall as it was being torn down, and protesting for freedom in Tien An Men square. But in 1987, there were only rumblings of those events. One of the "rumblers" was a Russian poet named Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Freedom of speech did not exist in the Soviet Union, but wherever the lines were drawn, he danced on them with his poetry. He was a rock star in Russia, packing out sports arenas like Bob Dylan had done in the US in the '60s.

Baylor invited him to come to campus for a live reading and Q&A session. I had never heard of him before he arrived, but I was riveted when he recited his poem, "I Would Like." He had translated it into English, and recited it with a thick Russian accent, sometimes reverting back to Russian for dramatic effect. He began with the words, "I would like to be born in every country." It was not enough for him, he said, to be just one person, he wanted to be everyone! He had a zest for life, and captured in his poems the longing of his countrymen to experience the world on the other side of walls and razor wire. No one else could have read that poem with the same effect; no one else had lived the life that produced it.

Jesus stepped into a world that had been reading his poetry, and reading it poorly. When other teachers spoke, they had to "name drop." They had to quote authoritative sources to give their own teaching credibility. Not Jesus. "You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,'" he would say. "But I tell you, love your enemy." (Matthew 5:43-44) No one said "I tell you." What difference would it make? Go to court and try that. "You have heard it said the speed limit is 55, but I tell you it's 80." That's what Jesus did. And when he quoted the Scriptures, as he often did, he laid claim to them as if they were his own. They were. There is no authority greater than the author. Who knows better what the author really meant? Who can bring the passion of personal experience? Who lived the life that produced the art? Who feels it in the core of his being?

For the first time in human history, people were hearing the Story of God from the author himself, and the power of that was unmistakable. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory..." -John 1:14

Read Through Mark Begins March 23

Have you ever been to a party where you didn't really know the guest of honor? It can be sort of awkward, right? We like the party, but the depth of celebration is limited by our knowledge of the one being celebrated. Easter tends to be like that too. For some of us, our knowledge of the Risen Jesus deepens our celebration on that day. We realize that Easter is about much more than one Sunday a year - it's about a daily celebration of a Savior that has given us new life here and now. For some of us though, we don't have that level of knowledge so Easter can tend to be just one other "church thing." This year, we want to help you deepen your celebration.

This spring, we are corporately reading through the Gospel of Mark. Beginning on Monday, March 23, we will begin reading one chapter per day. As you read this account of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we believe that your celebration will be more meaningful this year than maybe any year before. Cameron and Brad will blog here to discuss each of the daily readings. You can subscribe to this site to receive the daily posts by email, also.

So...read along with us. It's going to be a great ride.

If you haven't listened to our launch message for the new series and the daily readings, go HERE and do that first!

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STUDYING THE BIBLE AND READING THE BIBLE