The parable Jesus told to a lawyer who did not want the truth has embedded in it the three fundamental orientations toward other people — and only one of them is the philosophy of Jesus. Most people consider themselves to be in the third category —…
The Pharisees were the most religiously meticulous people in the ancient world. They fasted twice a week, gave tithes of mint and cummin, washed hands before meals, and prayed loud prayers at street corners. And Jesus called them hypocrites — whitewashed tombs, full of dead men’s…
The New Testament is the inspired Word of God because Christ, who possessed all authority, delegated it to the apostles, and the Holy Spirit guaranteed the accuracy and completeness of their record. Some people accept the Old Testament as inspired by God but hold the New…
The last words of Scripture before the benediction are not a command, a condemnation, or a prophecy — they are an invitation, and that invitation is deliberately open to anyone who will come. The book of Revelation closes with a scene of cosmic completion: the new…
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places” (John 14:1-2). Jesus said that on the night He was betrayed, to people who were about to watch everything they thought they understood fall…
“It is well to tell the sick of a physician; the poor of riches; the dying of life; the lost of a Savior; and the impenitent of hell.” The opening line is exactly right. This is not a subject a preacher enjoys. But silence on hell…
The Lord’s work requires some money, but money holds a subordinate place; the New Testament way of raising it is free, willing, liberal, regular first-day giving — not human fundraising systems that shift the emphasis from the spiritual to the financial — for the church is…
God and man value things differently; man is forever putting first what God puts last, and last what God puts first — so the whole art of right living is to see and rank things as God does, and “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.”…
In the Bible a “fool” is not the simple or unintelligent but the morally condemned, and Scripture marks out four classes — the atheist, the ignorant church member, the rich fool, and the “wise fool” who knows God’s will and will not do it, the last…
The dangers that ruin a life are usually not the great and obvious ones but the small, unseen ones — little faults of conduct, little compromises in our company, little neglects in our spiritual life — and wisdom watches for these “little foxes” before they spoil…