The Joshua Victor Theory

  In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lent always opens with Jesus’ wilderness temptation. 40 days of testing, and 40 days of Lent. Temptation, sin, and repentance are major Lent themes. Two sides are always at work in the struggle. Temptation vs. testing, Satan vs. God, our sinful will vs. God’s good will. The two sides of the struggle spring up from two different planted seeds. Planted seeds? What do you mean? In the parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, Jesus says the devil sows weed seed in God’s fields after God first plants good seed. The world is filled with bad seed mixed among the good, these two seeds that are planted with two outcomes, two sides in the struggle. James also looks at human sin and temptation as a weed seed that we plant in ourselves by an evil desire. An evil desire is a seed planted, that conceives and gives birth to sin, then matures into adulthood and brings forth death. That’s weed seed and its outcome. On the other h...

Sermon sentence outline 1. The Gospel reading is thick with tension. Different than we expect. Ignored, rebuffed, rebuffed again. Finally she turns the tables…one final rebuff to send her away? Surprising turn as He praises her faith and grants her request 2. John Gerhard compares this to Jacob wrestling with God—a test of faith where she had to wrestle against Jesus and prevail. “Often times Christ, our best friend, hides His blessed, kindly-disposed face from us, and He presents Himself against us as a stranger whom we have to engage in a wrestling match.” Just like Jacob wrestled and had the victory of faith (insisting on a blessing), so the woman had a victory of faith and held Jesus captive to her request. She persisted in chasing after His mercy. He was willingly held captive by His own words. Imagine a father play-wrestling with their child and surrendering to them. 3. How would our faith stand up under this kind of trial? In the shoes of that woman, would we have give...