One of the many remarkable virtues our Lord and Savior radiates is compassion. He teaches us so much about the display of His compassion throughout the gospel accounts. 

In Mark 6:33–44, we see a powerful glimpse of the compassionate heart of Jesus. After a time of hard ministry (healing, preaching, rejection, fickle crowds, Herod Antipas feeling threatened, John the Baptist’s death), Jesus invites His disciples to retreat and rest (Mark 6:30–33). But as they withdraw by boat, the crowds anticipate His movements and arrive ahead of Him on foot. 

When you hear the word “bold,” what person in the New Testament most comes to mind? Next to Jesus Christ, it would have to be Paul the Apostle. He appeared fearless in his ministry. He said he was “unashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16), and his “earnest expectation and hope” would be that he would “not be put to shame in anything, but with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body” (Phil. 1:20). He proclaimed the gospel to hostile religious leaders, kings, governors, and antagonistic Jews, among others.

My top 5 favorite drinks are: sweet iced tea, Dr. Pepper, Diet Snapple Peach Tea, Coke Zero, and the Monster Zero Ultra. I really like the Snapple drinks because they have a fun fact under their bottle caps, though they have found that a few of their so-called facts need some correction.

This last Thursday morning, Kim and I, along with most of our family, attended our daughter Annie’s graduation from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. It was an emotional time for Mom and Dad to watch our last child walk across the stage to receive her diploma. We felt the joy of her four-year achievement mixed with the tears of seeing her ready to begin a new season of life as a young adult and face the rough and tough world where she wants to make a difference. And then, the president of GCU, Brian Mueller stepped up to the podium and challenged all the freshly-minted graduates to do what God has called us all to do: “Go” and not “stay.” His words not only inspired the graduates, but they motivated me as a parent, grandparent, and disciple of Jesus Christ.

One of the things you do not want to miss when you read and study the Bible is how God uses various conjunctions in His communication to us (e.g., for, and, or, yet, therefore, now, then, so that, because, as, if, etc.).

Conjunctions are crucial for understanding Scripture and they reveal the relationships between ideas, clauses, and sentences. For example, the conjunction “and” connects ideas and clauses of equal importance (Gen. 1:1: “God created the heavens and the earth”), “for” explains or clarifies a preceding statement (Eph. 6:1: “Children, obey your parents I the Lord, for this is right”), and “since” indicates a reason or cause (Heb. 9:17: “a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive").