The Caldwell Commentaries Podcast

In this lesson, the Lord Jesus demonstrated His absolute authority over spiritual sickness (demons) and over physical sickness (disease).  His miracles were always performed to convince the people of Israel of His Death, to authenticate His claims to Messiahship, and to verify His qualification as the Saviour of man.  Isaiah 53:4 clearly predicted that the Messiah would heal many!

The fourth recorded miracle of Christ's earthly life was His deliverance of the Capernaum demoniac (Mark 1:21-28).  This is not only the first recorded miracle found in Mark's gospel account, it is the Lord's first occasion to exercise His authority over Satan's realm.  He expelled a demon from a man in the Capernaum synagogue.

The fifth recorded miracle of Christ's earthly life was the first of five recorded miracles He performed for women.  It was done for Peter's mother-in-law, who was running a fever so high it was life threatening.  By the way, for Peter to have a mother-in-law means that Peter also had a wife!!

In this lesson, we discuss the second phase of the Lord's calling to His disciples.  They had been called to salvation; now they were called to service.  On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Christ called on Peter, Andrew, James, and John to leave behind their careers as fishers of fish and become, instead, fishers of men!

We discuss some very interesting "Basic Principles of Fishing" in this study - applying the principles for being an effective fish-fisherman to being an effective person-fisherman.  Also included is the Lord's first miracle of a great catch of fish.  He told the men to return to the sea and cast out their nets even though they had fished all night and caught nothing.  When they obeyed, their nets were so full of fish, they began to break!  The Lord was teaching them many good principles they would use later when they went forth in obedience to the Great Commission!  In fact, Peter's first sermon "brought in" 3,000 "fish" (Acts 2:41)!

With this lesson, the Lord moved from His "Year of Obscurity" into His "Year of Open Popularity"!  He began this next year of His 3-year ministry by returning in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.  He was ready to establish Himself in the province where He spent most of His Childhood and early Manhood.  

This study includes the Lord's healing of the Capernaum nobleman's son from a distance.  The man was a Gentile - one of three Gentile-related miracles in which those healed were healed from a distance!  There is a reason for that, so "tune-in" and find out what it is.

Also included in this lesson is the first of two incidents when Christ was rejected in His hometown of Nazareth.  The citizens, in great rage, wanted to cast Him headlong off the city's cliff after He made it abundantly clear He claimed to be the Messiah.

This is the continuation of our study of John chapter 4 and the Lord's fantastic conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well.  When she comes to realize Who Jesus is, she forgets her waterpot as she races back to her village of Sychar to tell her fellow citizens (even though they held her in great scorn) about the One she had just met; the One Who knew all about her; the One Who very well might be "the Christ" (John 4:29)!

As the Samaritans came out to the well, dressed in their long white robes, Jesus told His disciples to lift up their eyes and look on the fields, for they were white to harvest!  He saw the ready hearts of the coming people as a ripe "harvest" - and they were!  Many of those people believed on Him when they heard His Words!  In fact, they were the first people in history to call Jesus "the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John 4:42b)!

This is one of the most marvelous episodes in the record of Christ's ministry!  Oh, how it shows us His amazing ability to witness and draw people to Himself with His gentle manner, but His blunt exposure of one's sin.  He shows us that God truly is no respecter of persons, for He completely disregarded the sex barrier, the social barrier, and the Samaritan barrier (all of which were sinful barriers created by people, not God) in order to overcome the sin barrier!  

See how our wonderful Lord was never self-centered.  Though He was (in His Humanity) weary, hungry, and thirsty, His primary concern was always to seek and to save a poor, sin-sick soul!

In this lesson, we consider John the Baptist's last testimony to Christ's Deity.  His ministry is completed after this final scene.  He decreased, while the Lord would keep increasing - just as the Old Covenant decreased (ended), while the New Covenant increased (Hebrews 8:13).  This study of John 3:22-36 serves as a "bridge" between the Baptist and Christ.  As the Baptist's ministry was to point Israel (and the world) to Jesus as the long-awaited Saviour, the entire purpose of the Old Testament and the sacrificial system of Judaism was to point to Christ and the Gospel message of the New Testament.

It was during a nighttime interview with a prestigious Pharisee of the Sanhedrin Council of Israel that the Son of God delivered the salvation message concerning the spiritual New Birth and how it works!

The words of Christ in John chapter 3 are the most important He spoke because they tell us how to enter the ultimate, supreme Kingdom of the spiritual and eternal - the Kingdom of God.

This lesson contains some of the finest, richest "gold" in all the great "gold mines" of God's Holy Word.  Besides the "must be born again" message, the Lord predicted His death by crucifixion and used the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness (back in the days of Moses) to do so.  Thus, we have proof that "The Good Serpent" (which saved ALL who looked upon it in faith from physical death) was a prophetic type of the Saviour of all who, in faith, look upon Him for eternal salvation (because He was lifted up to die in our place)!  See "Christ in Exodus" Lesson #   for a great study of "The Good Serpents" of Scripture!

Did you know that a number of the early Church "fathers" considered the Lord's single-handed cleansing of the Temple as one of the greatest "miracles" of His entire public ministry?  Did you know that His zealous act fulfilled two specific Messianic Old Testament prophecies (Malachi 3:1-3; Psalm 69:9)?  Did you know that on the Lord's first visit to Jerusalem in His official earthly ministry He predicted the Jews would destroy Him, but He would rise from that destruction on the third day?  

Did you know the Christ's first cleansing of His Father's House (the Temple) occurred at the time of Passover (as did His second Temple cleansing, which took place on Passion Week Monday)?  The Jews meticulously swept their own homes clean of all leaven, but they allowed God's House to be full of all manner of evil corruption ("leaven of unrighteousness") in what was called "Annas' Bizarre".  Annas was Israel's very corrupt high priest!  A problem with our culture today, which was likewise the problem in Christ's day, is the lack of righteous outrage over evil.  The Lord Jesus possessed zealous righteous indignation against sin!  He harmed no one, but He got His point across loud and clear!  What a great example!

A jam-packed lesson full of goodies for those who love to learn!

Anyone honestly investigating the matter of Christ's Deity needs to carefully examine both His words and His works.  His works (miracles) demonstrated His Deity in that they displayed His absolute authority over every realm of life: nature, Satan and the demons, sickness, disease, deformities, and death itself.  His miracles not only testified of His Person; they also confirmed the truth of His proclamations.

Not only was marriage the first institution created (designed) and ordained by God, but a marriage (in Cana of Galilee) was the first event God (Christ) sanctioned with His presence in His public ministry.  He also performed His first miracle to assure the success of that marriage.  Both of these truths tells us of the high position He places on the marriage relationship.

Learn why the Lord Jesus referred to His mother as "woman" in this account; not "mother".  Was He disrespectful?  What was the message He was conveying to her?  Was Jesus assisting the people at the wedding in becoming intoxicated by creating wine from water?  How does the first miracle of Jesus very interestingly compare and contrast to the first miracle of Moses, turning water to blood?  How do the two "first" miracles point to the difference in "Law" and "Grace"?  How does the Lord's miracle serve as a prophetic illustration of JOY coming on "the third day"?  What is the symbolic significance of the six clay waterpots which were filled to the brim?  How is the Gospel portrayed in this first CREATIVE miracle of turning water into wine?   AN EXTREMELY EYE-OPENING LESSON EVEN FOR THOSE WHO ARE VERY FAMILIAR WITH THIS STORY!

Having discussed how Heaven's dove fell (Christ's baptism-lesson 11) and how Hell's devil failed (Christ's temptation-lesson 12), we turn in this lesson to a look at how Earth's disciples followed!  After having seen to it that His Son was publicly identified to Israel, which John the Baptist did when he identified Christ as "the Lamb of God" (John 1:29), God began to see to it that His Son was privately identified as Lord to individual Israelites.  The Baptist had the special privilege of identifying Jesus (John 1:36) to the first two of the Twelve disciples (Peter and John).  They, in turn, brought two more men who became disciples (their respective brothers, Andrew and James), and two others (Philip and Nathanael) followed shortly after.

Not only do we have fun discussing each of these six men in this lesson, but we also lean a lot about how to witness of Christ to people using different methods, including how to witness to a skeptic!  We take an interesting look into how the Lord first testified to the reality of Old Testament prophetic types (pictures) of Himself as He declared to Nathanael that He is the fulfillment of Jacob's ladder!  He is the ONE WAY into Heaven!  He IS "The Ladder Lord" (see Genesis Lesson 14 on this podcast).