The singing has already started. The Christians sit comfortably in their usual spots. As they sing, they glance down at the hymnbook every few lines. Before they get to the last line, they close the book and then bow their heads, anticipating the opening prayer. In the back corner a young man slips in. His […]
WM: Introduce yourself briefly and tell what you do for your job. TR: My name is Tom Rodrigues. I’m a motorcycle officer in a traffic unit for the city of Hayward, California. I have been a police officer with the city for twenty-five years. My wife Mary and I have three daughters: Sarah (18), Allison […]
While he was in prison, John the Baptist was depressed by doubts concerning Jesus being the Messiah. Jesus told His disciples that they should tell Him of the miracles they had seen and that, “the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Mt. 11:5, nkjv). Many times it is the poor that are most receptive […]
Some years ago when visiting the home of a new couple that had come to our assembly, one of the questions that was asked was, “What kind of outreach do you have beyond your own assembly?” Sadly, we had to say we had no significant program to reach beyond our own members. We began to […]
Don’t confuse me with a gardener. I plant flowers each year but I don’t read garden catalogs in February, longing for the moment when the snow melts enough to see the soil. I like flowers as art, the bold interplay of colors, the drama of the unfolding bud–flowers as ideas, blooming in my mind, not […]
Few accounts in the Bible have been more misunderstood than this one (2 Ki. 2:23-25), due to the rendering “little children” in v. 23 (kjv). It should be translated “youths” or “young men,” the word in the singular being used of Joseph at 17 (Gen. 37:2, “lad”). Bethel was the home of Jeroboam’s “calf” and […]
A better script could not have been written by the best of dramatists. A solitary prophet of the Lord, roughly-clad and seemingly unknown, explodes on the stage of history and fearlessly declares before wicked King Ahab and his courtiers: “No more rain until I say!” (see 1 Ki. 17:1). Then, led by God, he withdraws […]
Is it not singular that the story of four leprous men should be inserted in the Book of the Kings of Israel? No; not for the Bible. If you were to take out of the Scriptures all the stories that have to do with the poor and afflicted, what a small book the Bible would […]
In 2 Kings 6, Israel’s inveterate enemy, the king of Syria, had planned by wicked stealth to destroy them. But Elisha, God’s prophet, forewarned Israel’s king of the evil devices of his adversary so that the nation was delivered. Then Elisha seemed to retire into the obscurity of one of those many seasons of quiet […]