1. In Israel today, it's still possible to witness the same scene the disciples saw 2000 years ago when the Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from various pastures at the end of the day.
  2. The price was really paid. Your sin remains buried in Christ’s tomb.
  3. When Jesus appeared again to his disciples on that first Easter evening and again a week later with Thomas and the Emmaus disciples, what did Jesus show them? His hands.
  4. Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
  5. Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
  6. Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”
  7. The church is called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. Where is that message found? In every blade of grass, on every page of Scripture.
  8. We are not pursuing dragons; we are the dragons. We are, all of us, Eustace Scrubb.
  9. He shows up when we are at our worst to usher us back to his side, lead us to repentance, rescue us, and reclaim us as his own.
  10. What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?
  11. The driving impulse of Lent isn’t so much “giving up” things as it is “putting on” something.
  12. One way or another, Rod always found a way to bring whatever story he was telling back to the gospel and God's grace in Christ.