As the voice crying in the wilderness, John the Baptist began his ministry by calling his people to repentance. His people demonstrated this repentance by baptism, which was probably something like a ceremonial cleansing. But the teaching of John the Baptist pointed toward another baptism, to the coming one who…

I’m sure we’ve all had those moments when we’ve questioned the seeming vanity of life under the sun. It could be the endless pursuit of ever-fleeting satisfaction. Or the mind-numbing monotony of repetitious work. If we’re being honest, I think we can say that the source of this sense of…

The opening verses of Hebrews contain some remarkable truths about Jesus, the unique Son of God. In fact, there are eight life-transforming truths we can learn about Jesus in these verses. Let’s see how these are unpacked in the Hebrews volume of the Bible Speaks Today commentary series. The Majestic…

Isaiah 40 marks a shift in the content of the prophet’s message. Gone are the woes and pronouncements of judgment. The prophet now turns to speak words of salvation. He speaks tender words of comfort to a people who’ve seen God’s justice cast them out of the land. These notes…

John’s Gospel includes seven profound statements by Jesus known as the “I am” statements. In these statements, Jesus reveals and describes his “saving relationship toward the world.” Let’s discover what we can learn about Jesus’ redemptive work from these statements with some help from notes in the NKJV MacArthur Study…

Following his teaching on the source of true defilement (Mark 7:1–23), Jesus enters Gentile territory and delivers a young girl from an unclean spirit at the desperate request of her mother. Let’s see how this exorcism anticipates the inclusion of the Gentiles into the saving purposes of God with these…

In a previous post, we looked at the role clean and unclean foods played in establishing the holiness of God’s people. Fast forward several thousand years and we see Jesus using those same categories to teach where true defilement comes from. Let’s follow up our previous post with this look…

There are many ways to reflect on the Word of God, whether it’s through a daily devotional, sermon, discussion, in-depth word study, or book on Christian living. In today’s digital age, it’s not as practical to lug around a huge selection of reference material. By going partly or fully digital,…

How should we understand the distinction between clean and unclean creatures in the book of Leviticus? What role did this distinction have for the ancient Israelites? And how did this distinction relate to God’s holiness? Let’s learn more about this part of the Leviticus holiness code with these notes from…