Chapters four and five of I Timothy are a preacher’s handbook: how to identify and resist false doctrine, how to invest personal time and energy, how to set an example in the right areas, how to handle reproof without offense, and how to care for widows…
Chapter six of I Timothy closes the letter with a cluster of practical duties arranged around the theme of what is worth pursuing. The servant asks: worth honoring my master? The false teacher asks: worth teaching for money? The person minded to be rich asks: worth…
Moses chose poorly by the world’s calculation — forfeiting wealth, honor, pleasure, and safety for suffering with a despised people. The results of that choice, measured from eternity, are the most spectacular biography in human history. The question the sermon presses is not what Moses chose…
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…
The rich fool was successful by every external measure. He was a failure at the only measure that counts. His five mistakes — disregarding God, selfishness, equating himself with a beast, planning to live without work, and expecting a soul to thrive on temporal things —…
Money is not evil; it is a rival. The person who lets money be a rival of God has lost the capacity to use money righteously. The person who keeps money in its proper place — a tool for supporting life, caring for others, and honoring…
This parable is usually preached for comfort — “even one talent is enough to be faithful” — and that comfort is real. But the outcome of the parable is not comfort; it is judgment. The one-talent man is the cautionary center, not a reassuring footnote. The…
Jeremiah’s word stands over every human plan: “It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” The honest acknowledgment of limitation is not weakness — it is the first movement of wisdom. Pride is constitutionally blind to limitation. It is the nature of pride…
Love is the defining characteristic of the disciple of Jesus — toward God, toward enemies, toward the brotherhood, toward the sinner. The test of Christian identity that Jesus himself set is not doctrinal precision but visible love: “By this all men will know that you are…
Jesus is the supreme example of loyalty — to truth, to his disciples, to the church, and to God. Every form of his loyalty cost something. The call to follow him is a call to the same costly faithfulness. Peter’s instruction — “For you have been…