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.
Matthew 23:1-12, Psalm 119:null, Matthew 11:28-30, Deuteronomy 6:8
Preaching Commentary If religion is to be true, its leadership must be true. —Frederick Dale Bruner [1] Humble Leadership Whenever Anthony Bloom, a former bishop and archbishop serving in Londo...
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...
Deuteronomy 6:20-23, Exodus 12:26-27, Joel 1:3, Psalm 78:4-7, Romans 5:12
Some stories, however, have been handed down to us. For some, we were not yet cognizant, and for others, we weren’t even born when experiences, memories, and stories affected our family and communitie...
2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Luke 12:33-34, Matthew 6:19-21, Proverbs 3:9-10, Deuteronomy 15:7-8, Leviticus 25:23, Psalm 24:1
The biblical theology of creation is a negation of theories of private” property and “public” property, our theories of individual ownership and collective or governmental ownership. The biblical view...
Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Isaiah 58:6-12, John 15:1-8, Matthew 28:18-20, Psalm 1:1-3
Pastor: Go now, as God’s children, chosen and dearly loved, to bear fruit for His Kingdom – fruit that will last. May the almighty and merciful Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless...
1 Corinthians 3:2, Hebrews 5:12-14, Luke 10:25-26, Deuteronomy 6:7, James 1:22
[M]y husband, Nick, tells a story of when he was a teenager riding his bike with his friends, and his chain came off his bike. Nick took the bike to his dad, who said, “I'll fix it, you watch”. Hi...
One day, a father bought his little boy some French fries. The father, doing what any dad would do, reaches over and moves to take one of the fries off of his kid’s plate. The little boy screams, slap...
A blind father, proud of his son who played Rugby at its namesake school, would listen intently to the roar of the crowd and the cheers for the winning team. Though he never saw his son in action, he ...
Deuteronomy 15:7, 11, Psalm 9:18, Psalm 41:21, 31, Proverbs 19:17, Proverbs 22:16, Mark 10:21, James 2:14-17, Matthew 19:21, Mark 12:43, Luke 18:22, Luke 21:1-3
Hence, whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Isaiah 58:6-12, John 15:1-8, Matthew 28:18-20, Psalm 1:1-3
Pastor: Go now, as God’s children, chosen and dearly loved, to bear fruit for His Kingdom – fruit that will last. May the almighty and merciful Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless...
Isaiah 49:15, John 10:14, Luke 12:6-7, Psalm 139:1-3, 2 Timothy 2:19, Isaiah 43:1, Matthew 10:29-31, Psalm 91:4, Deuteronomy 32:11, Job 39:1-2, Luke 15:4-6
The guillemot, a small Arctic seabird, nests in dense colonies on the rocky cliffs of the North Atlantic and Arctic. Thousands of these birds gather in tight spaces, with hundreds of females laying th...
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...
Pastor: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was no...
I saw the blessed Trinity working. I saw that there were three attributes: fatherhood, motherhood, and lordship—all in one God. In the almighty Father we have been sustained and blessed with regard to...
Jeremiah 17:7–8, Deuteronomy 30:19–20, Ezekiel 36:26–27, John 15:4–5, Romans 7:4–6, Psalm 1:2–3, John 15:1-8, Matthew 7:17-23, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 1:10, Galatians 5:22-23
Why does a tree bear fruit? Not because there is some law of nature that says it must. But simply because of the life within it, rising up from the soil and water that feed its roots and flowing in th...
To bless generally means to speak good or to do good things for another. There are many types of blessing in Scripture. The first is the blessing God communicates to people. When God blessed Abraham b...
Deuteronomy 1:6, Isaiah 40:11, Proverbs 3:5–6, Matthew 19:14, John 10:27–28, Psalm 23:1–3
Be kind to Your little children, Lord; that is what we ask of You as their Tutor, You the Father, Israel’s guide; Son, yes, but Father as well. Grant that by doing what You told us to do, we may achie...
Maybe the most sacred function of memory is just that: to render the distinction between the past, present, and future ultimately meaningless: to enable us at some level of our being to inhabit that s...
The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the private, and the emotional hold sway. Yet. . . that is ...
Genesis 41:46-57 , Proverbs 31:10-31, Deuteronomy 8:17-18, Matthew 25:14-30, Luke 12:13-21, Psalm 128:1-2
Seeing that wealth is neither to be avoided nor praised but rather stewarded wisely and generously, how should we think about material wealth creation? This is an important question worthy of thoughtf...
Matthew 13:, Philippians 3:1, 1 Samuel 3:1–10 , Exodus 7:12, Deuteronomy 6:4–9 , Psalm 136:
In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C...
1 John 4:7-8, Exodus 34:6-7, Deuteronomy 7:9, Ruth 1:16-17 , John 4:7-8, 19, John 13:34-35 , Psalm 89:1-2
Pastor: I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; People: I will make His faithfulness known through all generations. Pastor: Dear friends, we should love each other, People...
1 Peter 4:10, Matthew 5:9, Deuteronomy 31:6, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 147:3, Philippians 4:6-7
God, our Creative Father, Living Lord, and Holy Spirit: You call us by name and make us Your own–but you don’t leave us alone. You put us in relationships, families, and churches for our encouragemen...
Your decisions . . . along with your responses to other people’s decisions, which are also your decisions...are about the only thing you can control in life, which means your decisions are how you con...
Have you ever noticed how closely the words longing and belonging are connected? I’m not sure of their exact etymology, but I do believe that our deepest longing in life is to be-...