2 timothy on Future

Older notions of vocation and vocational development assumed that people wrestled with matters of vocation as a young adult. It has been commonly assumed that vocational counseling was provided in hig...

The books which were to form the future canon forced themselves on the Church by their intrinsic apostolic authority, as they do still, because the Kyrios Christ speaks in them.

So the first and most basic task of the Christian leader in the future will be to lead his people out of the land of confusion into the land of hope. Therefore, he must first have the courage to be an...

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

"Oscar Romero's Prayer" It helps, now and then,to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime onl...

Fear is a “mighty wind” indeed. The wreckage left by the toxic wind of fear is evident everywhere. We are afraid of the unknown, afraid of one another, afraid of poor health, afraid of death, and afra...

In his book, Running Scared, Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives are...

Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this point, Paul concludes ...

Preaching Commentary Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this...

In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying: About twelve years ago, I heard a ...

We all love a good comeback story. In such tales, the young upstart rises like a meteor, fails big, then fights back against the odds to win the victory. Tech whiz Steve Jobs was like that. After prod...

In the book A Peculiar Glory , John Piper describes how he maintained a traditional view of scripture, even after he went on to advanced theological studies in California and Germany. He describes hi...

Success is a Long Obedience, Not a Quick Climb Let me start with this: I am predisposed to believing that the ideal church size is relatively small.  Eugene Peterson has often been quoted as saying h...

If we see more and further than they, it is not because of our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high by their gigantic stature.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

The evening of a well-spent life brings its lamps with it.

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’

Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever bea...

As Europe plunged ever deeper into a second world war, the British poet W.H. Auden composed a poem (“September 1, 1939”) that peels back our human tendency to cover up all fear and uncertainty with se...

These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives. A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in cons...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

Setting the Context:  After the introductory tag from 2:14a this week’s text begins with “therefore” in 2:36 (Greek oun , which is the second word in verse 36 in the Greek text), making it especially...

An elderly man had horrible nightmares, the same event happening over and over in his dreams. He would dream that an enormous green dragon was chasing him, and he would become frantic. Then, just abou...

I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...

You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’

Our gracious God, you repeatedly move towards us, even when we pull away. You are not deterred by our rejection of you nor our running from you. Your love is persistent. We confess our distrust of you...

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

God as the Thanksgiving Hub Given how pervasive the theme of gratitude is in Scripture—and how my wife and I try to condition our children always to say “thank you” to anyone who shows them even the ...

This is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its messa...

Heavenly Father, thank you for a spiritual home For the legacy of those who have gone before us and welcomed us Lord Jesus, thank you for your church For the legacy of your word and witness across th...