How do we know when it’s safe?” my wife asked me. It was a good question for which I had no answer. Reluctantly, she had climb down into our dirty, three-foot-high crawlspace with me. An unpleasant feat made awkward in slippers and a robe and made more difficult with well-worn joints. The spiderwebs didn’t help any either. I don’t usually resort to such drastic measures with news of severe weather, but this time the local siren sounded. That’s serious! So… Read More »The All Clear
Have you prayed the sinner’s prayer? That phrase is associated with becoming a Christian. Yet, can we legitimately designate any prayer as the sinner’s prayer? And is no prayer, after conversion, a sinner’s prayer? The Bible is full of sinners who prayed. In many cases, an irrepressible awareness of sin, made all the worse by a recognition of God’s holiness, prompted those prayers. We call this confession, and it is an essential fruit of true repentance. In this fallen world,… Read More »The Sinners’ Prayers
Call it age-a-vu. When my generation were kids, we had hard-bound sets of encyclopedias. They cost a small fortune, but they allowed our parents to answer any question we posed to them with three simple words – Look it up. We used that same line on our kids, except the encyclopedia was on a CD. Nowadays, you need Wikipedia to find out what a CD is. But the real irony is that today, when we face a challenge, it’s our… Read More »Instruction in Godly Parenting
Jeremiah is probably not the portion of the Bible most think of when anticipating the Christmas season. It is filled with pronouncements of condemnation and judgment against a nation that had abandoned God and violated His covenant with them. At one point, God tells the people their religious worship departed so far from what he had commanded that it had not even entered His mind (Jer. 7:31). They had done what was to God unthinkable. In their desire to secure… Read More »The Unthinkable
In the early centuries, three simple words meant the difference between life and death; yet, Christians clung to another three words and gained eternal life.
They don’t get clicks, likes, or retweets on social media. They don’t dominate the news or gather a great following. In earthly spheres of power and influence they are insignificant; however, in Christ’s kingdom they are sons and daughters of God. Jesus called them blessed. They are the peacemakers. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). Beatitudes A Rare Word for an Exceptional Virtue On the surface, we may not think of peacemaking… Read More »Blessed Peacemakers
Do I believe in miracles? The question is not merely speculative. Heaven and hell are at stake. Jesus forces this question upon me with his pronouncement, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). This beatitude arouses either pure despair or pure hope. It all depends on whether I believe in miracles. The Beatitudes The Necessity of a Pure Heart The beatitude echoes Psalm twenty-four: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who… Read More »A Pure Hope
As a child, I struggled to finish my dinner. Not that I was given too much food, I just disliked one or more of the items on my plate. Often my mom would remind me of the starving child in Africa who would love to have my food. Fortunately, international adoptions were not common back then, else I might have foolishly suggested we procure one. That would not have gone over well. The problem was not an inefficient allocation of… Read More »Longing for Righteousness
Let’s face it, the prosperity preachers have an appealing shtick: “God wants you to drive the best car, live in lavish luxury, and be independently wealthy.” Unsurprisingly, that message coincides very conveniently with my own innate self- indulgence, covetousness, and vanity. Nevertheless, the most formidable opponent of this prosperity gospel is the Bible. In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12), Jesus preached a contrary message. His gospel involves poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, purity, peacemaking, and persecution. The primary characteristic of the blessed… Read More »The Poverty Gospel
Peace officers carry guns. As a child of the sixties, that still strikes me as ironic. The word peace conjures up images of flowers, certainly not guns. Nevertheless, having survived the sixties and the decades since, I am convinced that arming the police with flowers instead of guns would be disastrous. The paradox of peace is we must fight for peace. Fighting Words This is a contentious day when disagreeing with someone could get us ‘canceled.’ We are accused of… Read More »The Paradox of Peace