Our family has recently been studying the Gospel of Luke. As we have considered the good examples of Jesus, one characteristic that frequently jumped out was the efforts He put forth to maintain His spiritual connection with the Father. One definition for connection is “an association or relationship.” Let us consider some of the examples…
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5; see also 1 Peter2:8, Revelation 1:5-6). Each and every individual member of the body of Christ (the Church of Christ) is a priest of God, truly an…
Samson is the last of the judges in the book of Judges, and one of the most difficult to understand. He did not use other men. He worked solely by himself. He did great feats of strength. If he had been intended to raise an army, there would have been no need for the extra…
The Bible begins with this colossal declaration: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The implications of this truth are immense and practically inconceivable. In the beginning God created everything. In six days, God made everything we see and everything we don’t see. He made the world and all of the invisible…
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life ” (John 3:16). Here is a vast vision of hope: “For God so loved the world.” The world is vast with good prospects for everyone. “‘Therefore go into the highways,…
The world grows darker as each day passes. We, like the Philippian brethren of old, live in, “the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (2:15). While the world sinks deeper into the dark abyss of depravity and perversity, we must uphold the light of Christ…
For thousands of years now men have known that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sins. The story has been told from generation to generation that God assured Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if ten righteous souls could be found there, but alas, there were not even ten. Angels, appearing as…
Jesus and his chosen disciples were Jewish, living under the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. As such, most of Jesus’ teachings during his ministry were built upon principles already known by Jews familiar with the Old Testament. On four points, Jesus specifically instructed his disciples not to be like the Gentiles…
Because the values of societies either differ one from another or change over time, it seems that some parts of the Bible carry more relevance to some generations. For example, Ecclesiastes is particularly well suited to identify the consequences of humanistic or atheistic thought in a post-modern world. John’s gospel account bears greater weight in…
As you walk down the street, have you ever seen it to be bright and sunny on one side, and dark, stormy, and raining on the other side? Then how can we expect our life to always have only good things happening to us? When the rains come in our lives, why should we complain, “Lord, why me?” We know this is a sin-cursed earth; bad things just come with the territory. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:24, “God causes the sun to shine on the bad as well as the good and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”