1 peter on Consequences

While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...

Amy Carmichael was a passionate missionary to India. She gave her life for the sake of those who had suffered the consequences of an unyielding caste system. She also had her suffering, due to physica...

The Lord is our Shepherd. He is aware of our wanton hearts. He has rooted out our sin and reversed its dire consequences upon His cross. The tree of life has become the cross of Christ. Although we ha...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance The Sufficiency of Jesus' Sacrifice AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? The times after Jesus’ ascension were both an excit...

Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor.

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

All these changes did the Merciful One effect: Stripping of His glory and putting on a body; For He had devised a way to reclothe Adam, In that glory which Adam had stripped off.

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.

The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as the...

We are what we believe we are.

Recently I read about an experiment done by psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He came up with a fascinating hypothetical exercise, which went something like this: Participants were handed a summary of a p...

Context As we read the opening chapters of Mark, it becomes clear that Mark is not primarily interested in telling us things about Jesus but showing Jesus to us. We see Jesus the healer, the exor...

Although we use the word stress in a negative connotation, it actually is a value-neutral concept. In the medical sense, stress is the body’s response to any change required of it or any demand impose...

Context As we read the opening chapters of Mark, it becomes clear that Mark is not primarily interested in telling us things about Jesus but showing Jesus to us. We see Jesus the healer, the exor...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...

Two decades after I worked with the airmen, I read a fascinating article, “The Quasimodo Complex,” in The British Journal of Plastic Surgery, Two physicians reported in 1967 on a landmark study of e...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

In life, whenever someone achieves success, criticism usually follows—regardless of their skill or the effort they’ve invested. An old story illustrates this truth. A woman crafted artificial fruit so...

I spent a considerable amount of time with a guy I’ll call Martin. As a brand-new follower of Christ, Martin felt guilty for having previously embezzled a lot of money from his employer. After discuss...

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. ...

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity. Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.

Dealing with sin, saving humans from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification-all this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

It is always crucial to remember that our beliefs are formed not only through reason and argument but also through social conditioning.

In the last resort it is highly improbable that there could ever be a therapy which gets rid of all difficulties. Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

Psychiatrist James Knight describes in graphic detail the experience that members of Alcoholics Anonymous experience: These persons have had their lives laid bare and pushed to the brink of destructi...