Jesus was not whom most people expected. Mark’s Gospel paints a portrait of Jesus that looks more like a servant than the redeemer God’s people had anticipated for hundreds of years.

But we know that God’s ways are often not our ways. The Gospels record that, according to God’s plan, the second Person of the Trinity became a man, Jesus, and lived among people. They were able to observe His actions and hear His teaching. While many regarded Jesus as the long-anticipated Savior of Israel, they also hoped He would be the one who would drive the Romans from their land and restore their kingdom. This would be a glorious future, and they hoped their lives would change for the better as their leader ascended to power. But Jesus had a different mission, one that embodied service and, finally, the ultimate sacrifice.

In the Gospels, Jesus taught these values to His disciples and followers. When it became clear that two of His disciples, James and John, were thinking of themselves and not of Jesus’ mission, He corrected them. While they may have been used to powerful leaders who held their authority over others, they were to live differently (v. 42). Jesus was modeling a different way, using His power to serve others. Greatness in God’s kingdom would be achieved by serving those in need (v. 43).

By invoking the title Son of Man for Himself, Jesus drew a connection to the book of Daniel where the second Person of the Trinity appeared as a man and received power, authority, and a kingdom (Dan. 7:13–14). Jesus was saying that even the God-Man did not come to use power for Himself, but for those He came to serve. His ultimate service would be to give His life, so that many would be saved from their sins.

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Watching buildings under construction is an exercise in waiting. At times it seems like nothing is happening. Construction vehicles come and go but no structure rises above the ground. Finally, the building pokes out. Then things slow down again as work progresses out of sight. Suddenly, one day, people are living there!

Today, we begin our journey through the New Testament. After 400 years without direct revelation, God’s plan to redeem our broken world seemed not to be going anywhere. The Jewish people had returned from exile and found themselves in their homeland, but without a king and without significant blessing. They struggled with faith. The idolatry was gone, replaced by religiosity that needed a heart change. Then suddenly, God’s plan entered its next phase.

We begin the Gospel of Matthew, where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and informed her that she would participate with God in a miraculous way. She had been chosen to give birth to a child who would “save his people from their sins” (v. 21). This is the first of many moments in the New Testament that directly answer events of the Old Testament. In Genesis, Adam and Eve sinned, plunging the world into darkness, but Jesus (His name means Yahweh Saves) will undo the consequences of that early disobedience. Sin was humanity’s greatest challenge! Prior to this moment Israel relied on sacrifices that couldn’t completely atone for their sins. Now God would offer a sacrifice that would put sin away forever.

To remind his readers that this was always the plan of God, Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah who predicted that the miraculous birth of a Son would signal God’s presence with Israel to deliver them. Like the grand opening of a building, the next step was finally here!

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The last few days of a semester are more important than my students realize. The final weeks present an opportunity to tie up loose ends, clarify concepts, and summarize the big picture. And as we come to the end of our grand tour of the Old Testament, the Bible returns to a major theme: God intends to undo the damage done in the garden.

Malachi reminds Israel that the promised Messiah will arrive on the scene (v. 1). But He will not telegraph His visit. He will appear suddenly, with surprise. His appearance will signal God’s commitment to the covenant He made with Israel. Long ago God bound Himself to His people by making a promise never to abandon them, but to redeem them. That redemption will require purifying them to make them fit to be with Him.

So, the coming of this messenger will be accompanied by a great refinement (v. 2). Using the image of a furnace for refining metal or a launderer with strong soap, God declares that no one will escape the purifying process. He will start with the Levites, who facilitated Israel’s sacrificial worship system (v. 3). If the worship team is sinful, the offerings they bring will be unworthy. But thankfully, God would refine them.

This refining process would involve a confrontation, a reckoning. Using judicial language, Malachi announces that evildoers would be put on trial (v. 5). It would be easy to dismiss this passage as yet another description of judgment on Israel, but there is more here. Coming as it does at the end of the Old Testament, it leaves us with the hopeful expectation that our sin problem will be finally dealt with! Even at the end, God is not done with Israel.

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “The Cobbler’s children have no shoes”? If you saw the children of a cobbler, a shoemaker, walking around with worn out shoes, or no shoes at all, you would wonder why! Wouldn’t caring for your children’s needs be a priority? In a similar way, the prophet Haggai warned God’s people that their priorities were out of alignment. They were neglecting what was most important.

Israel was back in the land after 70 years spent in exile. While they returned in excitement, the rebuilding process had been discouraging. The Temple in Jerusalem was still not completed, and the people had turned instead to building their own homes. Through Haggai, God confronted them about the situation: “Is it time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” (v. 4). His question needs no answer. Of course, it was not time for them to be focusing on their own homes while the house of the Lord was in shambles. This was an embarrassment, an affront to all sensibility.

God’s displeasure is evident as the prophet points out that they have been suffering economic distress (v. 5). Their crops have failed. What they do have, they find satisfying. When they save money, it disappears like money in a bag with holes (v. 6)! They were failing to prioritize the most important things and this affected everything else they did.

The solution was to put God first. They needed to expend energy, making God’s work a priority in their lives. They needed to be less busy with themselves and more busy with the things of the Lord. Specifically, that meant redoubling their efforts to gather the building material to finish the Temple and working hard to get the work done.

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The forest fires raging in California and Western Canada have caused an incredible amount of devastation. Homes have been destroyed, communities erased, and lives lost. Many wonder if things will ever return to normal. After returning from the exile, life in Judah was not the same as it used to be. The Jewish people returned to a land devastated by war. No longer an independent nation with their own king, they had become a province in the mighty Persian Empire.

Into such discouraging circumstances God sent the prophet Zephaniah with a message of hope. God had not abandoned His people (v. 17). While their situation might have given them the impression that they were alone, the reality was that God was with them as He always had been. God was a mighty warrior, intent on saving them (v. 17). This portrait of God was designed to encourage them to have hope for the future.

After decades in exile, followed by decades of malaise, the Jewish people needed hope that God’s wrath could be assuaged, and that they would see the other side of Him again. He declares in Zephaniah that the time for rebuke is over. Instead, He will respond to them with delight and singing (v. 17). More than that, He will undo the effects of their sin. Oppressors who had been sent to afflict them will be removed (v. 19). The lame and exiled who find themselves helpless will be rescued and brought home to a hero’s welcome!

God will return things better than they were before. After enduring the punishment for their covenant violations, Israel could rest in the knowledge that their God had never abandoned them, and that He was a God who restores.

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Revenge is a dish best served cold, or so we are told. But as people committed to the Bible, we are commanded not to take revenge. We are told to love our enemy, not plot his downfall. Yet if you have ever suffered an injustice, you know the feelings that can bubble up in your heart. If I don’t take care of this, who will? If I don’t take care of this, they might get away with it. Is there anyone you can turn to who will take care of things for you?

In biblical times, Assyria was a world power that excelled at cruelty. From one of their principal cities, Nineveh, this empire ran roughshod over the ancient Near East. In his providence, God used this nation to chastise His people. But the Assyrians took delight in their cruelty and took credit for their own success (Isa. 10:10–11), so God decided to defend His people. The judgments described here are severe: Their allies would abandon them, they would be childless, their precious idols and temples would be destroyed (Nah. 1:14).

This would have been a cause for rejoicing among Israelites. God promised to defend them when their enemies attacked. He had done so in the past, but with the arrival of Nineveh they might have wondered if He would do so again. The prophet declares that He would (v. 12). This was a joyous word from the Lord. Nahum calls it “good news” (v. 15). Their enemy would be totally and triumphantly defeated.

Rejoicing at the downfall of an invader is understandable, but how can it be squared with exhortations to avoid revenge? Nahum provides the answer. Because God is fully capable of judging with perfect righteous judgment, His people can leave that difficult work to Him.

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For a number of years, my father, a pastor in Brooklyn, New York, volunteered with a second chance program. Young men and women who had early encounters with the legal system were given a chance to have their records expunged in exchange for community service. They were given a second chance for a purpose.

God gave both Jonah and the people of Nineveh second chances as well. Most of us are familiar with Jonah’s story. After God told the prophet to go to the city of Nineveh, Jonah fled in the opposite direction. The Lord disciplined the prophet with unusual means, and Jonah spent a few nights in a watery jail cell before he was released on parole (read Jonah 1–2).

In chapter 3, we see God return to Jonah a second time with a mission (3:1). God once again told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh, calling them to repent. Again, Jonah was resistant. Why did he resist? Was it fear? Was it bitterness? As an Israelite who had suffered at the hands of Nineveh, he preferred to avoid this calling.

Thankfully, God didn’t leave the outcome in Jonah’s hands. It was God’s message and His heart on display, as He called a second time for Jonah to deliver this message! We learn that the “Ninevites believed God” (v. 5). Their turnaround was so complete that “a fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth” (v. 5). God had saved Jonah for a reason, and this time the prophet obeyed. “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened” (v. 10).

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I lived in eastern Iowa for a decade. Every Wednesday a tornado warning siren would blare over the air. My family and I quickly learned that this was only a test, and we grew to ignore them. But occasionally the siren would blare at a different time, and we would scramble to the basement in haste. The siren was calling us to take immediate action so we would live!

The prophets of Israel are often characterized as full of judgment and destruction. But we can also look at them as God’s warning sirens. During the days of Amos, Israel was not living according to the covenant, so God sent the prophet with a warning. “Seek me and live; do not seek Bethel” (v. 4). By inviting the people to seek Him, God was sounding the alarm.

This alarm also warned them where not to go. Bethel was an infamous city in Israel. Generations before, a king named Jeroboam had built a temple to a false god there (1 Kings 12:29). As a result, he led the nation into idolatrous worship and away from the Lord. Years later, Bethel continued to be a place where people went to sacrifice and pray to a pagan deity. Like a family fleeing from a tornado to the second story of their home, Israel was turning to false gods for help. They needed to be told where to go, but they also needed to be told where not to go! The other cities, Gilgal and Beersheba, also had associations with wickedness.

Far more than just judgment and destruction, the prophet Amos was calling Israel to change their ways while there was still time. Eventually God would lose patience, but until that moment there was a chance to escape punishment. All they needed to do was seek Him, and they would live.

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It is possible to settle a lawsuit without admitting guilt. Sometimes the cost of the legal proceedings is so high that an accused person may just settle the case with a fine, while never actually admitting they are guilty. While our legal system allows this procedure, it would be hard to say the person who paid the fine actually repented.

A survey of Israel’s history could lead one to believe that the nation had been paying fines, but never really admitting they did anything wrong. They seemed to commit the same sins over and over again. Idolatry, abusing the poor, and taking advantage of foreigners all appeared on their rap sheet since the book of Exodus. Even though God had called them to repent more times than we can count, they had not done so with their whole hearts.

The prophet Joel describes what true repentance looks like. He uses an ancient image for expressing distress: tearing a garment a person is wearing. Generally tearing a garment will ruin it, so this act was reserved for expressing the deepest of distress. But tearing a garment could also be done for show. Here the prophet invites his audience to an even greater level of commitment: rending or tearing their hearts (v. 13).

This expression signifies a genuine decision to turn from violating God’s covenant. It is an act that, while it cannot be seen externally, is transformative spiritually. Joel calls his readers to this because, unlike a torn garment, a torn heart will be accepted by God. Joel knew God’s character. Since the days of Mt. Sinai God had consistently reminded Israel that He was unlike any god they had ever encountered (Ex. 34:6). Joel invokes that self-declaration of God here, using it to entice the Israelites to repent.

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If you’ve ever received a strong rebuke, you had multiple ways to respond. You could immediately fight back, justify yourself, and even explain why the correction was unnecessary. Or you could accept the critique as being good for your development.

In the Old Testament, Israel received many rebukes from the Lord. There were times when they justified themselves. But in Hosea, God’s people listened, accepted the discipline, and committed themselves to Him again. The prophet Hosea begins with a call to “return to the Lord” (6:1). Like a car making a U-turn, the writer encourages his listeners to make a 180-degree change to their sinful ways. He acknowledges that the Lord has “torn us to pieces” (v. 1). This is a graphic description of the strong discipline they have endured. Because they wandered so far from Him, God brought the judgments He described in the Law upon them (Deut. 27–28).

Notice that their ability to return to the Lord is based upon His character. The prophet does not say: You’ve now become good enough to come back to Him! Instead, Hosea roots his call in the fact that God loves His people and has promised to restore them. “He will heal us…he will bind up our wounds” (v. 1). Why would God do this for wicked people? So that they would be restored to live righteous lives in His presence for their own good (v. 2).

With this commitment from God to forgiveness and restoration, the prophet challenges his readers to press on to return to and acknowledge the Lord (v. 3). God has made a promise and as sure as the sun rises, He will fulfill it!

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