Stop Asking If You Can Do Something and Start Asking If You Should We have freedom through Jesus. Do we believe this is true? How does this idea inform our day-to-day actions? We’ll do well to consider this thought to determine the best way to apply it to our lives. As children, our parents taught […]
How Closely Do You Do the Things God Tells You to Do? Paul travels to Ephesus to tell people about Jesus. This is his mission, a mission for God. As a Jew it seems logical that he would go to his own people first to share this good news. He does. He goes to the […]
How We Read Scripture Influences Our View of God and Our Relationship with Him In a prior post I said that not all Scripture is the same. I placed the books of the Bible into eight groups. This formed a hierarchy of importance, starting with the Gospels. Though this is a most helpful guide in […]
The Bible Tells Us to Live a Life of Contentment Though some people in our world struggle to have the basic requirements for life, many others enjoy an existence that meets all their needs and beyond. This is a given for many people in most developed nations. They don’t need to seek God for their […]
Be Careful What You Say Many people today—too many—feel they have a right to say whatever they want to say, whenever they want to say it. What they forget is that this privilege also comes with a responsibility to not say some things, to at times keep quiet. Just because we can say something, doesn’t […]
Paul Spent Time with God in the Spiritual Realm and So Can We In Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth he makes a cryptic statement about going to the third heaven. He doesn’t know if it’s an out of body experience or not (2 Corinthians 12:2). This is the only verse in the […]
Learn about Archippus Archippus is mentioned twice in the Bible, both times in letters from Paul. First, in the letter to Philemon, Archippus is one of the addressees and is called “a fellow soldier.” Then in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, he inserts a personal message to Archippus. Paul says, “See to it […]
Discover What Scripture Says About the Lord’s Supper Last week we looked at the context of the Lord’s Supper, noting that Jesus based it on Passover, which is an annual event celebrated with family around a shared meal. Although Communion is a New Testament practice, only four books in the Bible have verses about it. […]
Learn More about Aristarchus Another of Paul’s friends, mentioned in his letter to Philemon, is Aristarchus. We first hear of him in Acts. We learn that he is a Macedonian from Thessalonica who is traveling with Paul on one of his missionary journeys. Later, when Paul is sent to Rome as a prisoner, faithful Aristarchus […]
Learn More about Demas Whereas John-Mark had an early collapse and then made a comeback, Demas started strong but ended in failure. He began well. In Paul’s letter to Philemon, Demas is called a co-worker and in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Demas sends his greetings. Clearly he was involved with Paul’s ministry in a […]