There are mysteries and there are mysteries. The New Testament mysteries are the revelation of truths previously hidden (Eph. 3:9-11; Col. 1:26; 1 Pet. 1:11-12). But it is another kind of mystery I am thinking about today. The kind nobody can explain. These are mysteries observed around the breaking of bread meeting. Maybe you have […]
I was witnessed to last week, the first time I can remember. Sherry was a kindly looking lady sitting by the airplane window, probably in her mid-sixties. She made a frontal attack. Point blank, she told me she was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That was the last […]
The life of Simon Peter has always been of particular interest to God’s people. His very names blend together the human and the divine, even as does Jacob/Israel. How vividly he manifests the frailty of human nature and the rock-like character of divine transformation. While much has been written concerning his call to discipleship in […]
It is plain that God calls some believers to be relieved of the demands of secular work to engage in another kind of work, the Lord’s work. This is not a distinction between clergy and laity as introduced by men in the church’s history, but a simple fact of God’s sovereign work in calling His […]
There is something wholesomely energetic about Simon Peter’s forthright manner. The Spirit of God always uses the servants of the Lord consistent with their characters, and this is seen here in connection with Simon. The burden of the entire ministry of this first epistle is connected with suffering, and Peter indicates that the “little while” […]
For two-and-a-half years our Lord had lived among His apostles. Making Himself of no reputation, He had given them no certain clue to His dignity. Yet “He could not be hid.” To quote the words of His evangelist and friend, who more than any other penetrated beneath the Lord’s grace and truth to their hidden […]
Three years before Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake outside St. Andrews Castle, young David Beaton, nephew of the Archbishop James Beaton, sailed over from France to work under his uncle. David had studied at the Scottish University in Paris beside brilliant scholars such as Patrick Hamilton. Very likely they knew one another. But […]
The close of Matthew 14 presents a scene in the life of Peter on which we may dwell with profit for a few moments. It furnishes a good illustration of his own touching inquiry, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Our Lord, having fed the multitude, and sent His disciples across the sea, retired to […]
The whole Sabbath day Christ lay in the grave. But the resurrection morning comes, and Peter and John, told by Mary Magdalene that the Lord had been taken from the sepulcher, run to the grave, and Peter is outrun by John. I know some say that Peter was older than John, but I do not […]