bible
Search by topic, scripture, category etc..
103 Results in 975ms
Display
Sorted By
-
illustration
The Success of Every Culture Hinges…
The success of every culture hinges not on big points of morality—there will always be issues like abortion or school prayer over which people differ—but on smaller values, like being considerate of o... -
illustration
The Spectrum Of Conviction
So how can we form deep Christian convictions without dividing the church? Let’s take a deeper look at convictions themselves. Convictions are like light: they come in many colors and form across a sp... -
Quote
A source of the intensest pleasure earthlings can experience, sex has also been a source of vexatious trouble for the human family since the beginning of history. -
illustration
Sparks of Eternity
The late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck was convinced that buried in our explicit pursuit of sex is an implicit pursuit of God. He noted that sex is likely to be the closest that most people ever come to ... -
illustration
Culture is Like Gravity
Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ... -
illustration
So Much Straw
Thomas Aquinas, the famous medieval theologian, created one of the greatest intellectual achievements of Western civilization in his Summa Theologica. It’s a massive work: thirty-eight treatises, thre... -
illustration
The Heart of Christian Virtue
If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without l... -
Quote
Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h... -
illustration
Becoming the Person God Wants Us to Be
Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point... -
illustration
Trust and Belonging
We were created to communicate, to speak truth fully to one another, so that we might be members of one another. To be members of one another means we must learn to trust one another. Trust, like trut... -
Quote
The True Self is all about right relationship, not requirements. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected, which you always were—you just didn’t realize it. -
Quote
The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself w... -
illustration
Reflecting on Shusaku Endo’s Novel and Film, Silence
In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju... -
illustration
Who Determines Your Behavior?
Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape... -
illustration
Polemic Against Paganism
Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int... -
Quote
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation. -
illustration
You are who you Surround Yourself with
Context matters. According to the Terman Study, which followed one thousand study participants from childhood until their death, the people we surround ourselves with are who we become. We see those a... -
illustration
Two Wrong-Headed Views of the Body
Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed... -
illustration
Pursuing the Common Good Throughout History
Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ... -
Quote
Faith: not wanting to know what is true. -
illustration
Good vs. Bad Discipline
While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an... -
Quote
“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.” -
illustration
Our Moral Superiority
Researchers at the University of London concluded that “a substantial majority of individuals believe themselves to be morally superior to the average person” and that this illusion of ours is “unique... -
Quote
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque... -
Quote
All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself -
Quote
’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. -
lectionary
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Preaching Commentary Different Levels of Maturity? There is an interesting dynamic I have noticed that often occurs as people begin to mature into adults. In my life it was a stage that took place ... -
illustration
Augustine on Virtue
In his book On the Morals of the Catholic Church, Augustine reinterpreted the classical virtues through the distinctly Christian lens of love: I hold that virtue is nothing other than the perfect lo... -
Quote
Truth consists in the mind giving to things the importance they have in reality.
Page 1 of 4
Bible by Topic
C
Bible by Reference