What can sickness teach us? Babies cry because they cannot say what is wrong or where it hurts. Crying is thus a visible and audible symptom of an underlying problem. Hunger or wetness can be dealt with easily, but, if crying continues, parents become medical detectives, looking for other general symptoms that may indicate an […]
God’s mark of ownership, commitment and purpose on the child of God. God has revealed truth progressively through His Word and sequentially through time. God does not give a complete doctrinal statement about Himself in Genesis, but, in successive ages and to a variety of believers, He has made Himself known. In this regard, little […]
My wife has never asked me to tell her that I love her or to buy her a Christmas present. (In fact, she regularly insists I needn’t buy her any presents at all. I am not fooled.) I would be a foolish man (in more ways than one) if I were to conclude that her […]
We may be giving ourselves too much credit. In 1735, the Swiss botanist Carl Linnaeus proposed an ingenious, shorthand way to name plants using one Latin word to designate the “genus” group and another to identify a particular “species” within that genus. Used together, the terms make up the unique “binomial” name of each plant […]
Grace can make beauty flourish in the most unlikely surroundings. Paul and Silas had crossed over into Europe with the gospel in response to a vision which Paul had experienced. In this way, the gospel came to this large Roman province which ran across an area including much of northern Greece and beyond that into […]
Time to check our resumes. What if the elders in our local assembly ran an ad in the newspaper that read something like this: “Help Wanted: seeking qualified Christians to prayerfully share in exacting work to edify others. Must be willing to submit to godly authority.” Would we apply for the job? Elders seldom talk […]
We have received “grace upon grace,” “manifold” and “unsearchable riches” of His grace. We may ransack every dictionary in the world only to discover that there are no adjectives that adequately describe the grace of God. It is so multifaceted, versatile, all-inclusive, and all-embracing. By this we dare to mean that there is no circumstance […]
Cleanliness is part of godliness. In an unholy world, the Christian gospel stands out for the dramatic change it makes in the lives of its adherents. Like the contemporary world, ancient Thessalonica was a depraved den of iniquity, but the liberating glad tidings of Christ effected a great change in the lives of the first […]
Principle Number Three: The Good Shepherd volunteers to shepherd (Jn. 10:16-18). This third principle is first suggested in John 10:16: “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring…” The word for “must” (dei) carries the idea of an unavoidable and urgent necessity based on the very nature […]