Grace

After watching him pray, one of Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Teach us to pray.” Prayer may be one of our most natural human instincts, yet many of us struggle with it. How do we pray, and where do we begin? Jesus responds with what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer–not simply words to recite, but a guide to discover a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God.

It’s striking that Christianity introduces itself to the world with a book written by someone despised by religious insiders, someone they considered beyond the reach of God. It’s as though the New Testament begins with an exclamation point of grace. We see this vividly in Jesus’ call to Matthew.

How far does God’s love go? The story of Hosea is one that helps us scratch the surface of answering that question, and in doing so, offers a picture of the power of God’s pure love.

Modern readers sometimes assume Jesus’ original followers readily welcomed the news of his resurrection because they were gullible. The New Testament Easter narratives tell a different story–one that strikes a fair-minded reader as both historically reliable and psychologically authentic, inviting us to consider both its plausibility and significance today, rather than dismissing it as an idle tale.

The Apostle Paul’s conversion story appears three times in Acts. Why would Luke devote so much space to one life-changing moment? Here we’ll explore what this story reveals about life, faith, transformation, and the kind of church we want to be.

It seems so easy to let our differences divide us. We feel comfort in surrounding ourselves with similar opinons, looks, backgrounds, and abilities to ours. This passage is just one of many examples that displays the deep unity the early church held, across differences, as the people clung to their commitment to the message of Jesus.