The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Serving as a religious leader comes with its own particular bag of temptations, as Jesus makes clear in today’s gospel reading. Temptations to pride and ego, towards seeking and often receiving honor and the praise of others, temptations to the abuse of power, and temptations to prop up an artificially perfect image of oneself—and therefore fall subject to the charge of hypocrisy. They are spiritually deadly temptations, as the teacher of God’s Word may be tempted to use the appearance of religion or holiness, to disguise their own sin. In a parallel passage in Matthew, Jesus confronts the scribes for not practicing as they preach. Jesus ends His warning to the scribes, by saying “ They will receive the greater condemnation.” Why the greater condemnation? Why are these temptations particular to religious leaders, myself of course, included? First of all, the greater condemnation owes ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. In relatively short order, in 7 verses, the reading you heard from the Gospel of Mark outlines an important series of events when Jesus first came on the scene publicly, to preach and teach in the land of Israel 2,000 years ago. Jesus’ is baptized in the Jordan River by His cousin John the Baptist. God the Father speaks His approval over Jesus; the Holy Spirit appears at Jesus’ baptism—a miraculous and clear revelation of the Trinity—that God is Three in One—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And after these momentous events, Jesus is immediately propelled into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And forty days later, John has been thrown into prison, and Jesus carries on the ministry, telling people to turn away from sin, and believe in the gospel—the good news of the kingdom of God. Mark throws a whole lot at us at once, and to unpack what it all means would be beyond our time here. And it’s all surprisingly ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today’s Gospel reading contains a few basic teachings about discipleship, or what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Although it was especially the teaching about forgiveness that caused the apostles to respond to Jesus: “Increase our faith!”—each one of these teachings will challenge our faith. So let our prayer today and always be: “Lord, Increase our Faith!” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Jesus begins by pointing out that it’s unavoidable that temptations to sin will come. Jesus isn’t saying that temptation itself is unavoidable, because we’re promised that when we’re tempted, God is faithful not to let us be tempted beyond our ability to bear it. There will never arise a situation where we simply cannot help but give in. God will always provide a way of escape, so that we can endure it (1 Cor. 10:13). C.S. Lewis wrote about this Bible passa...