Pastor Chad Lewis

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The present Chapel Chat is an unusual one for me. Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is one of the most well-known parts of Scripture, and is, for that very reason, apt to be overlooked. Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt. The Beatitudes are a striking case in point, for they invert our whole ordinary way Keep reading…

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The Bible teaches that Jesus was the true temple of God, and that through his blood he washes us and makes us fit to be temples too, and through the breaking of his body he imparts to us the Spirit that was in him. But how do we know this is true in our case Keep reading…

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“He came to his own, yet his own received him not” (John 1:11). The Jews of the first century were a hardened people. Weary from the struggle against sin and heresy, and especially of being dominated by foreign peoples who cared nothing for their God—they had steeled themselves against anything that might break into their Keep reading…

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All of us have a basic human need to understand who we are. When we are young, many of us are inclined to identify ourselves with our hobbies, our schoolwork, or our friends. As we get older, we may identify ourselves with our job, our family, or our religious values. Whether we are young or Keep reading…

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Why do some people say they have “fallen in love with Jesus?” To me, falling in love refers to romantic love. We don’t have that kind of love for Jesus, do we? “Love is love” is an expression that has become popular in our culture. Most of us realize, however, that this isn’t really true. Keep reading…

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Is life a journey or a playground? A journey has a destination, and it has a road that leads to that destination. A playground doesn’t lead anywhere; there are no roads, just a lot of open space to play in. I think most of us like to say that life is a journey; but I Keep reading…

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Since the early church, many believers have perceived a difference between the god of the Old Testament (OT) and the god of the New Testament (NT). In the OT, YHWH often comes across as a force to be reckoned with, passing rigorous laws and exacting the most severe punishments. In the NT, Jesus seems more Keep reading…

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Recently, my wife asked me to do something and I didn’t do it. A little later, I asked my son to do something and he didn’t do it either. Where do they get this from? Faith and works are closely related. I can say I believe a person, but the real test is whether or Keep reading…

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What are we to make of the presence of holy war in the Scripture? When the descendants of Jacob came out of Egypt, they were organized into the people we call the Israelites, and they were commanded to take possession of the land then occupied by the Canaanites. This process involved armed conflict, and though Keep reading…

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Caesar once said “Divide and conquer.” But there is an even more sinister power in the world that knows how to unite and conquer. Among the many values praised beyond all bounds of proportion in our day, one of them is unity. We get the idea that unity is so valuable that it is to Keep reading…

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“It is appointed for men to die once and after that to face judgment” (Heb. 9:27). Awhile back, my kids were reading a famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. When Becky asked them what they thought of it, one of them said “If the pastor preached things Keep reading…

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In the ancient world, names were ideally regarded as reflecting the identity of a person. The Bible is full of such examples. When Hannah’s prayer to YHWH for a child was heard, she named her son Samuel (“God Hears”). A name change therefore indicates a change in the identity of a person. The Bible also Keep reading…

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The Bible tell us that faith in Jesus Christ is enough to receive the gift of his forgiveness and the gift of his Holy Spirit. So the first thing to understand is that all believers are in possession of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, it does not follow that all believers manifest its presence in their Keep reading…

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Did Paul have a choice about being a Christian? Questions about free will are nowhere explicitly dealt with in the Scriptures. The views that theologians have about them must therefore be held tentatively since they have to be dealt with by way of implication. In order to address this one, I am going to back Keep reading…

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What does it mean to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth? The phrase “in the Spirit and in truth” is taken from John 4:24. It is part of the larger story of Jesus’ famous talk with the woman at the well, and our understanding of it needs to be situated in that context. Keep reading…

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Did Jesus have to experience temptation to know what we go through? Doesn’t he just know? God is omniscient, which literally means that he is “all-knowing.” However, when the Bible uses the verb “to know,” it often is not referring to our knowledge about things, but to our experience of them. Thus, to say that God Keep reading…

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A lot of times, we think that we are sinners because we do sinful things: for example, because we lie, cheat, steal. But really it is the reverse: we do sinful things because we are sinners. Sinfulness is a condition that we are in, and the condition is there regardless of whether it expresses itself Keep reading…

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In the book of Judges, the Bible tells of a man named Gideon who was chosen by God to deliver the Israelites from the hand of the Midianites. On the eve of one of the battles, Gideon sought divine reassurance about whether or not he would be successful, and he prayed the following prayer: “YHWH, Keep reading…

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In the Old Testament, the word anointing can be traced to a special oil whose manufacture is prescribed in Exodus 30:22-33. The purpose of this oil was to set apart certain things as holy (e.g., the Tabernacle) or certain people as holy (e.g., the priests). But anointing wasn’t the only way to render something holy. Keep reading…

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For many people, the idea of jealousy is often classed as a kind of petty emotion, and therefore many newer translations of the Scripture have sought to translate this passage somewhat differently. I believe the traditional translation is good, however, because it calls to mind a frequent metaphor in the Bible: namely, that Israel is Keep reading…

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