The old saying that we will not know where we are going unless we know where we have been applies to Paul’s work in Corinth. The forward progress of the church in Corinth, as well as churches today, was hindered by a great misunderstanding of the central truth of the gospel. Human wisdom and effort will not enable a church or an individual Christian to apprehend the wisdom of God. The church was f...  Read More

“Smooth sailing” is a euphemism that means easy progress without impediment or difficulty. The Galatians were on some windy, choppy waters, so church life was definitely not smooth sailing. Captain Paul’s argument, to carry the analogy forward, takes another tack as he sails toward the final destination of freedom in Christ.Galatians 5:13 serves as a transition verse from his theology of freedom (...  Read More

If we are not careful, an unbridled individualism may well be drawn up within a destructive vortex of Christian nationalism. This failure may happen when Christ-followers fail to bend the knee to his universal authority (Colossians 1:15-20). The underlying challenge that is found in Mark 12 relates to Jesus’ authority. Jesus’ right to rule provides a flash point for the tensions that we see in the...  Read More

“If you do not get anything else right, then make sure you get this right,” are words that seminary professors would utter with urgency when they were trying to teach me and my fellow classmates a central truth. I gave them my full focus because they usually followed that statement with, “This material will be on the final exam!” Mark provides us with thirteen verses to open his gospel, and he is ...  Read More

Pastor Josef Mohr (1792-1848) was a December babe, born in Salzburg, Austria, where he was reared to love Christ and his Church. As a young man, he entered the seminary, where he was ordained in 1815. He then began to minister to the villagers in several hamlets nearby. His work was intense, for there was unending misery in those days.A string of volcanoes had been erupting in Asia for many years ...  Read More

In 1871, Horatio Spafford (1828-1888), a devout Presbyterian church elder and prosperous businessman, was living comfortably in Chicago with his wife Anna, and their four young daughters. At their home in a north side suburb, the Spaffords hosted and financially supported many guests. Horatio had been active in the abolitionist crusade and their cottage was a meeting place for activists in the ref...  Read More

Muriel Lester was born in Leytonstone, Essex (now in east London), on 9 December 1883 into a prosperous Victorian shipbuilding family. Her father Henry owned a shipyard in Blackwall Docks to the south on the Thames River, on the Isle of Dogs. It was her family's company that built the barge that carried Cleopatra’s Needle, an ancient Egyptian obelisk, dated 1450 BC, to London when it was given as ...  Read More

People, power, and principles are interwoven to create a rope that may be used to help or harm people. Hopefully, the previous sentence sounds intriguing and causes you to wonder what it may mean. I wrote it so that we would consider the impact of our everyday life encounters. It should cause us to reflect upon the ways that our beliefs and actions may be used in God’s grander purpose to advance t...  Read More

“And the Lord spoke” carried supreme authority when Israel received God’s law. Community was formed by God’s word and his word set the boundaries for inclusion and exclusion in it. Not so any longer in Western culture! As Dallas Willard writes, “What characterizes life in so-called Western societies today, however, is the absence, or presumed absence, of knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong...  Read More

Open doors lead both to expected and unexpected results, so make certain to step forward with the Spirit’s guidance and help. Now, that opening sentence holds some significant implications. If you are like me, you will often open a package and lay the instructions aside because you are eager to enjoy the contents. We quite often open the package of new life in Christ but fail to read carefully the...  Read More

One of the great expectations of the Christian life rests on the truth that what began at the Ascension of Christ will be completed upon his glorious return. In the meantime, we have an assignment from him (Acts 1:8). Please bear with me because this devotional is desperately needed in our current day. Gratefully, we have been left with a wonderful account of the early church in the Book of Acts t...  Read More

“Science tells us that when you tell someone they’re wrong, they’re more likely to dig in than to experience a change of heart.” (1) Such a claim applies to other areas beyond science and holds broad moral implications since the statement was first directed toward those who oppose childhood vaccinations. Similar resistance has surfaced with the advent of COVID-19 vaccinations, and is reflected in ...  Read More