Somebody must fill all second places. The refusal to do so — the insistence on first place when God, time, or circumstance has assigned the second — is one of the most consistent causes of failure in life. The man or woman who can take second…
Service is the fundamental structure of Christian existence, modeled by Christ himself — “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). The motive of service determines its character: fear-motivated service…
Anxiety is not merely an emotional condition — it is the practical expression of misplaced trust. The person who worries about what they will eat or wear has, at the level of daily functioning, placed more confidence in their own management of material circumstances than in…
God blesses men through men. This has been his consistent pattern from Abraham to Christ: the person through whom God works is the person God has sanctified — set apart, consecrated, made fit for the work assigned. The degree of sanctification corresponds to the greatness of…
The claim that a Christian can reach a state of sinless perfection — a condition in which sin is no longer possible or even inclined toward — contradicts the explicit warnings of I Cor. 10:12, Heb. 4:1, and Phil. 2:12, misreads the commands to “be holy”…
When a person begins to seek God, Satan begins to seek that person. The obstacles are predictable and consistent: laziness, pride, fear, prejudice, and the love of an evil life. Each has appeared in the lives of people who sought God and failed to find him…
Responsibility is not assigned generically — it is measured by ability and opportunity. The Christian who has both is the most accountable person in the world: accountable for what they do, accountable for what they could have done and did not, and accountable for whether they…
Second Timothy is a letter from a prisoner to his most trusted companion — written with the awareness that Paul will not leave Rome alive. The two chapters are saturated with the tension between Paul’s circumstances (imprisonment, abandonment, suffering) and his instructions (teach, endure, handle the…
The parable of the householder is a parable about where you are and what you are doing there. The kingdom of heaven is the vineyard — the church — and the one who enters it enters to labor, not to observe. There is no reward for…
Neglect is not the absence of wrong action — it is the presence of a sin. The man who knows his duty and does not do it has sinned; the church that knows its obligations and ignores them is guilty. The hearer who has heard the…