Leaders are essential. Every football team needs coaches, every business needs managers, every school needs administrators, and every flock of God needs shepherds.
Our prayers must be offered according to God’s will. John declared, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).
We are first introduced to Saul of Tarsus at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58). At that time, he was convinced that Jesus Christ was an imposter and the His followers needed to be silenced.
The penitent thief is a remarkable story of salvation. However, he lived under different circumstances than we do. We must look at the new covenant for how one is saved today (Acts2:38; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Pet. 3:21).
The gospel accounts of what happened on that memorable morning are true. Jesus was raised! His spirit broke forth from the hadean realm and reunited with his body.
The earthquake in Philippi that night was not the work of Mother Nature, it was the work of Father God. He made the “jailhouse rock,” not to deliver the prisoners but to deliver the jailer and his family!
Jesus condemned the wearing of religious titles in Matthew 23. He said, “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.
The Bible has a lot to say about lazy people, especially in the book of Proverbs: “Lazy people irritate their employers, like vinegar to the teeth or smoke in the eyes” (10:26).
We give our lives to pursuing goals that would have little value if we ever succeeded in reaching them. And that is really what Ecclesiastes is trying to convey. A meaningful life is a Master-full life!
It is not uncommon to hear Christians speak of the Lord’s “broken” body. Some do this out of tradition and are just repeating what they have heard many times before, while others sincerely believe that it is biblical language.
While there are some things to admire about Luther, there are many more things that should give us pause. He had a distorted view of God’s grace, the sacrifice of Christ, and the inspiration of scripture.
The Bible teaches that all land-living animals, including dinosaurs, were created on day 6 of creation. That is the same day that man was created. Hence, humans and dinosaurs coexisted on the earth.
While man does bear some of the consequences of Adam’s sin, he does not bear the guilt of Adam’s sin (Ezekiel 18:20). We are not born sinful, we become sinful!
Christians are never told to “tithe” in the New Testament. It is not required, or even recommended, as the basis of our giving. We are simply to give as we have prospered.
Many preachers neglect these truths because they view baptism as a meritorious work. However, Paul makes a distinction between “works done by us in righteousness” (meritorious works) and the “washing of regeneration” (baptism) in Titus 3:5.
God did not intend for marriage to be a burden, but a blessing. He saw that it was “not good” for man to be alone, so He made a wife to be his compatible companion.
Jesus spent His whole life showing grace to the disgraced. From touching a leper to speaking to a Samaritan woman to eating with tax collectors, He was the personification of “loving the unloved."
Revelation has self-imposed time restraints that many seem to either miss or ignore. It begins and ends by telling us that these things would happen shortly.
Our English word “excruciating” literally means “out of crucifying,” and that is probably the best way to describe how Jesus died. It was excruciating!
The jealous man is not content and constantly compares himself to others. He feels that their fortune is his misfortune; that their promotion is his demotion.
Self-control is a vital virtue. Just as an athlete must discipline his mind and body to win the physical race, a Christian must discipline his mind and body to win the spiritual race.
Baptism is an act of total surrender to God. By doing this, one is sharing in the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, he is appealing to God for a good conscience, and his sins are washed away.
The world is full of smart people who foolishly trust “knapsacks” to save them. It might be the knapsack of popular opinion, or the knapsack of personal preference, or the knapsack of family tradition, or the knapsack of my preacher says.
The church is to be a hospital for sinners. We are here to help those who are hurting. We do that by being gentle and merciful to them, and by pointing them toward the “Great Physician.”
When Christians come together and act as a single unit, we too form a weapon that is terrible to behold. We become an incredibly powerful instrument for God to use in the world.
“Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
In 1830, a man named George Wilson was sentenced to death by hanging for mail theft. President Andrew Jackson gave Wilson a pardon, but he refused to accept it.
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ did not begin on the cross, or in the garden, or in the manger. It began in heaven when He laid aside His glory and consented to come to earth.
