The greatest commandment, said Jesus, is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (see Luke 10:25-28, Mark 12:28-31; see also Matthew 22:35-40 [minus strength]). Well, we should love God then — but how exactly is this done? *** As we unpack the four means with which we are to love God, … [Read more…]
We’re told that sometime next month the earth’s population will reach 8 billion. And it’s estimated that close to one-third of the people in the world today are Christians. So here’s a thought, shared by our church’s minister in a recent sermon: What if every Christian brought just one other person to Christ? Even better, … [Read more…]
Jesus told us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and added that this sums up the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12; see also Luke 6:31. So the Golden Rule is important, and the idea of this post is to offer some thoughts on following it. *** It’s … [Read more…]
This is a good biography of William Tyndale by a Protestant — and of course the Protestant take on Tyndale is that, for translating the Bible into English, the Catholic Church hunted him down and killed him (by strangulation, explosion, and burning — you can’t take any chances with these heretics!). The Catholic Church, also … [Read more…]
Jesus is, as you would expect, quoted a lot in the Gospels. But how much is He quoted in the rest of the New Testament? I found the answer to be surprising. If you consider all his letters, Paul quotes Jesus … exactly once (I Corinthians 11:24-25, regarding what Jesus said at the last supper, … [Read more…]
As the one Gentile author in the Bible, Luke alone came from a background in which the very concept of Scripture was, presumably, unfamiliar. Yet, as a new Christian, he was quite aware of the Holy Spirit. So was he conscious of being inspired to write God’s word in Acts even if, beforehand, such writing … [Read more…]
When I was growing up, my mom would from time to time offer me a “t.l.” or “trade last.” She’d explain, “Somebody said something nice about you to me, and I’ll tell you what it was, but first you have to tell me something nice someone said about me.” I never heard anyone else use … [Read more…]
The top two commandments are to love God and to love others. See Matthew 22:37-40: “Jesus said unto him [i.e., a Pharisee — and a lawyer, to boot — asking Him what was “the great commandment in the law”], Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy … [Read more…]
My regular, as opposed to spontaneous, prayers each day include grace at each meal as well as the Lord’s Prayer and one prayer devoted to each of the four classic categories, spelling A-C-T-S: one for adoration, one for confession, one for thanksgiving, and one for supplication. I’m not bragging, by the way — far from … [Read more…]
I was drawing a timeline of human history for my grandson, and was struck by a pleasing symmetry: The Patriarchs lived around 2000 B.C., and of course we live around A.D. 2000, and right in the middle we have the birth of Jesus. I’m not submitting this as proof of anything, and of course one … [Read more…]