1 Samuel 2:1-10, Luke 17:11-19, Job 1:21, Acts 16:25, John 6:11
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...
1 Samuel 18:1-4 , Exodus 17:8-13 , Ruth 1:16-17, John 15:12-15 , Philippians 2:19-22, Psalm 133:1
Friends are individuals who are relational assets and not liabilities. Friends are those whom God escorts into our environments because there is something they need to be for us in order to help us be...
Proverbs 17:17 , Ruth 1:16-17, 1 Samuel 20:16-17 , John 15:13-15, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 , Psalm 133:1
It’s been said home is the place where they have to let you in. While it’s a reach to say I’m friends with each of my family members, our relationships thrive because we share a mutual, understood res...
John 15:null, John 15:13, Proverbs 17:17, Proverbs 27:6, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, 1 Samuel 18:1-3, James 5:16
Friend. We use that word too loosely. Too flippantly. We use it too generously. And most damaging of all, we give the title to people who haven’t earned it. I recognize that using the word earn makes ...
Galatians 6:2, 1 Samuel 18:1-3, Romans 12:10, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, Proverbs 17:17, John 15:13
Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and college together. After college they decided to jo...
1 Samuel 18:1-4 , Ruth 1:16-17 , Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, John 15:12-15, Philippians 2:1-4, Psalm 133:1
Our current cultural moment makes rich, life-giving friendships like the one David and Jonathan shared a challenge. We are connected like never before, yet isolated and lonely like never before. MIT p...
Romans 12:1, Matthew 5:44, Proverbs 15:1, 1 Peter 3:9, Luke 6:31, Galatians 6:9, Colossians 3:12-13, 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Genesis 50:20, Philippians 2:3-4, James 1:19-20, 1 Samuel 24:17
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...
I was listening to a lecture on friendship to prepare this sermon and the speaker used the movie The Bride of Frankenstein as an illustration. Now, for this to work, you have to put the movie Young...
Proverbs 18:22, Matthew 1:18-25, 1 Samuel 1:, Genesis 2:24, 1 Peter 4:8
On a little study table in my office, there’s a card with a quote from Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Misérables: My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt...
Psalm 133:1 , 1 Samuel 18:1-4 , Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Luke 5:18-20 , Luke 5:18-20 , Psalm 133:1
Any social science study will tell you relationships are key to happiness and well-being. But there’s more. Friendship isn’t just an elective in the course of life, it’s required. In my line of work I...
1 Samuel 2:1-10, Luke 17:11-19, Job 1:21, Acts 16:25, John 6:11
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...
Psalm 23:, 1 Samuel 16:11, 1 Samuel 17:20, 1 Samuel 16:13, Exodus 34:6-7, Exodus 15:null, Exodus 34:6-7, Deuteronomy 2:7, Numbers 10:33
Preaching Commentary The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved ps...
Psalm 23:null, 1 Samuel 16:11, 1 Samuel 17:20, 1 Samuel 16:13, Exodus 34:6-7, Exodus 15:null, Deuteronomy 2:7, Numbers 10:33
The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved psalm of the entire Psalt...
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Hebrews 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:5-12, Acts 18:24-26, John 1:1-18, Acts 18:24, Psalm 8:null, Acts 15:39, Mark 13:1-8, Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16:, 1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10
Introduction, 1:1-4 While Hebrews is an anonymous letter, it is interesting to note that the KJV’s first verse is, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers ...
Ezekiel 36:26-27 , Zechariah 4:6 , 1 Samuel 16:7, John 15:4-5 , Galatians 5:22-23, Psalm 127:1-2
You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.” “You’re supposed to.” “You better.” Do these sorts of exhortations sound familiar? Perhaps you have heard admonitions such as these from the pulpit, from...
1 Samuel 15:10-23 , 2 Chronicles 26:16-21 , Ecclesiastes 2:4-11, Mark 10:35-45 , Luke 18:9-14 , Psalm 49:16-20
William James, in a famous letter to H. G. Wells in 1906, credited what he called American “moral flabbiness” to “the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpr...
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Hebrews 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:5-12, Acts 18:24-26, John 1:1-18, Acts 18:24, Psalm 8:null, Acts 15:39, Mark 13:1-8, Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16:, 1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10
Preaching Commentary Introduction, 1:1-4 While Hebrews is an anonymous letter, it is interesting to note that the KJV’s first verse is, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time...
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1
Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...
Genesis 50:15-21, 1 Samuel 24:1-12, Micah 7:18-19, Matthew 18:21-35, Ephesians 4:31-32, Psalm 103:10-12
For several years, Jason and I nurtured a friendship that led us to decide to work together because we knew each other so well. But things soon became complicated between us. I began to notice some tr...
Romans 12:10, James 5:19-20, Ruth 1:16-17 , 1 Samuel 18:1-4, 2 Samuel 23:15-17 , John 15:13, Luke 10:30-37, Psalm 133:1
Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and college together. After college they decided to jo...
John 15:13, 1 John 4:10-11, Romans 12:10, Song of Solomon 8:6-7, Genesis 29:20, 1 Samuel 18:20
Valentine’s Day commemorates the date on which Valentine, a roman priest, was executed by order of Emperor Claudius II. Claudius II was embroiled in a number of wars and believed that married men mad...
1 Peter 4:8, 1 Samuel 18:20, Acts 2:42-47, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:10, 1 John 4:20-21
Our bond, which you resent, consists in mutual love, for we know not how to hate; we call ourselves ‘brethren’ to which you object, as members of one family in God, as partners in one faith, as joint ...
Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Proverbs 22:6, 1 Samuel 1:27-28, Luke 2:51-52, Ephesians 6:1-4, Psalm 127:3-5
I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of Go...
1 Samuel 16:7, Micah 6:8, Proverbs 22:2 , James 2:1-4, Luke 14:12-14 , Psalm 146:3-7
Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...
For those of us who live in the shadow of self-doubt, who may wonder what meaning a life of relative anonymity may have in a society filled with the cult of celebrity in which likes, reposts, and digi...
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 , 1 Samuel 8:4-22 , Jeremiah 9:23-24, Mark 8:36-37 , John 17:3, Psalm 73:25-26
Mark Twain’s travels through Europe became something of a triumphal tour, with the most distinguished figures on the continent eager to host him. He dined with royalty, intellectuals, and statesmen, h...
1 Samuel 16:7, Amos 5:21-24 , Isaiah 1:11-17, John 4:21-24, Matthew 18:20, Psalm 95:6-7
A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...
Luke 7:11-15, John 19:25-27, 1 Samuel 1:1-28, John 14:27, Jeremiah 30:17, Isaiah 66:13, Psalm 34:18
Thank You, Lord, for the gifts of life, of love and of care that come from You, wrapped in our moms and step-moms, in our grand-moms, great-grandmas, daughters, sisters, and aunts. We’re grateful for...
1 Corinthians 3:3, Titus 3:3, James 3:16, 1 Samuel 18:10-16, Exodus 20:17, Mark 7:20-23
Joseph Epstein tells a joke that illustrates envy’s malicious and impotent character well. Once there was an Englishwoman, a Frenchman, and a Russian: Each [was] given a single wish by one of those ...