When was the last time you prayed against the devil? Or, attributed your physical pain or emotional vexations to a demonic spirit? If it has been some time (or never), it’s probably because you live in the 21st Century America, where the evils of the world—moral and...
When Jesus approached His two disciples departing Jerusalem on the day of His resurrection, He asked, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” (Luke 24:17). Deftly, he quizzed them about the events of his own death, burial, and...
Assurance. It is a precious gift the Lord gives His people. As 1 John 5:13 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” Despite God’s promise of assurance, sometimes experientially our...
Romans 15:7, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” In the Bible hospitality is no small matter. From Abraham to the Apostles, God called His people to greet one another with love and concern. For instance, in the Old Testament, it was...
I love the gospel and the church, and I can’t wait to teach them every Sunday. But it wasn’t always that way. How Do You See the Church? Admittedly, for me, I was slow to understand and appreciate the importance and beauty of the local church. In high school and...
When Paul called the Ephesian elders to himself in Miletus (Acts 20), he recounted his three years of service before them. His words focused on preparing the elders whom he loved and labored with for the challenges they would soon face. Just as Paul fought the beasts...
When I was in College and a young believer, one of the first Christian books I read was Bill Bright’s Witnessing without Fear. It was a helpful introduction to evangelism and the call of disciples to be witnesses for Jesus. Just beginning to understand what it meant...
2 Corinthians 1:8–9, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that...
God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, the apostle Peter said (2 Pet 1:3). This means Scripture gives us all we need to know about God, salvation, and good works. It doesn’t mean that Scripture tells us how to teach grammar or solve chemical...
How do you know if your church is Spirit-filled? One answer, the charismatic one, is to equate passion with presence. The presence of the Spirit is displayed in a congregation’s passionate expression and rockin’ music—to use technical language. As an example, recently...
Psalm 119 is an elongated exaltation of the truth, beauty, and goodness of God’s Word. In twenty-two stanzas, it leads the reader to consider all the ways in which God’s Word intersects our lives. There are dozens of themes to consider, but one that stands out is the...
What is a disciple? The answer may not be as easy as it might first appear. First, there is a shift in the meaning of the term ‘disciple’ from the Gospels to the book of Acts. For instance, in John 6 many of Jesus’ ‘disciples’ leave him. These are the ones who...
Awhile back, I wrote a blogpost, “Theology is not Just for Theologians.” Fairly recently Edmond Sanganyado ran a post (“Becoming a Better Theologian“) on the same subject, where he queried more than twenty theologians on how to grow in knowing and loving God (i.e.,...
Ever walk plan on making a home repair in less than an hour, only to find that four hours into it, the problem has only gotten worse? Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time. Faced with the thorns and thistles of our fallen world, we groan under the...
“Long ago, at many time and in many ways, God spoke to our father by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through who also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the...