My five-year old, Adeline, has prayed the same prayer every night for the past two years, “Jesus, thank you that you can heal mommy’s eyes.” (I am blind in one eye and have a disease in my other eye that could leave me completely blind. Two years ago I had a series of three emergency […]

After reading the story of the widow and her two mites, found in Luke 21, we might wonder, “Compared to her, will I ever give enough to Jesus?” She is inspiring, isn’t she? Let’s see what we can learn about giving from scripture. In Deuteronomy 16:17 God says, “Every man shall give as he is […]

When Jesus wanted to make a point about prayer, He used a woman as the heroine of a parable. The woman in the story (found in Luke 18) was a widow who was being taken advantage of. With no other recourse, the widow appealed to the local judge. Middle Eastern culture has long been characterized […]

Jesus tucked the Parable of the Woman and the Lost Coin into a series of three parables beginning with the Parable of the Lost Sheep and climaxing with the Parable of the Prodigal Son. These parables have for centuries been called, “Evangelium in Evangelio” or “the gospel in the Gospel” and are seen as a […]

In Luke 4:25, Jesus said, “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of […]

We know only a few things about the prophetess Anna whose story is found in Luke 2. One of the most striking things noted is that she was ancient! (Luke politely says she was of “great age.”) Commentators are divided on whether the eighty-four years noted in scripture is her actual age or the number […]

When the angel appeared to Zacharias in Luke 1, he began with some of the most hope-filled words conceivable: “Your prayer is heard” (Luke 1:13). If you have prayed for something specific for years and years, as Elizabeth and Zacharias had, aren’t you glad that your prayers aren’t just floating around in oblivion? They are […]

The book of Luke begins with stories featuring three feminine figures; Elizabeth, Mary and Anna. We shouldn’t be surprised by this since Luke records more stories of women than any of the other gospels. In fact, throughout Luke’s gospel, the ratio of women to men featured in stories is about one to one. This is […]

There has been no time in history when American Christians have come closer to personally understanding the story of the servant girl and Peter at Jesus’ trial, found in Mark 15, then right now. In fact, on the very week that we find these particular scriptures in our Bible reading plan, we also may have […]

The intersection of the two stories found in Mark 5 teaches us a vital truth; someone else’s blessing from God doesn’t take away from our own ability to be blessed also. We tend to worry that we won’t get our share or our turn, even from God. When we are working through infertility and every […]