Warren Robinson Austin was an American politician and diplomat serving both in the U.S. Senate and the United Nations as a U.S. ambassador. During a debate, Austin was asked how he would approach the ...
In their excellent book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien share the importance of recognizing the lens through which see the world: We speak as insi...
Philippians 3:14, Matthew 7:13-14, 1 Peter 5:8-9, Colossians 2:8, Psalm 1:1-3, Ephesians 4:14, Romans 12:2
Perhaps the most intense place to experience drifting is commonly known as the EAC, the East Australian Current. If you’ve ever seen the Disney Pixar film Finding Nemo, you’ve been exposed to the EAC,...
2 Corinthians 10:1, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:3, Colossians 4:6, Matthew 23:11-12, Proverbs 11:2, James 1:19
In a statement created by Christian leaders across the world, the Lausanne Willowbank Report calls for church leaders to return to the humility and servanthood that Jesus manifested in His earthly min...
Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...
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...
I once had the opportunity to speak briefly to a large Mormon audience at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I told them that I feel badly about the fact that we evangelicals often tell Mormons what th...
Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...
Matthew 18:20, 1 Peter 2:5, Hebrews 10:24-25, Acts 2:42-47, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 4:15-16, Romans 12:4-5
Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW. No...
Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, there is no particular cri...
Genesis 3:8-13, Matthew 7:3-5, Romans 14:10-13, Luke 6:41-42, James 6:41-42, James 4:11-12, Ephesians 4:31-32
In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ...
In Christ there is no East or West, In Christ no South or North; But one great family of love Throughout the whole wide earth. In Christ shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find; H...
Psalm 42:5, Romans 12:15, Ephesians 4:26, Lamentations 3:19-23, James 4:8-9
Too often we are given a choice—emotions or faith and belief. Yet as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman observe, Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open ...
Preaching Commentary Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, the...
The Power—the Spirit—is thus a social power, working to bring all minds into its own unity, sometimes by similarity and at other times by contrast. There is a diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.
A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...
Everything significant starts with relationship. At the end of the day, your faith, your family, your work, and your leadership are all based on who you relate to and how you relate. Your life is moti...
Kevin Vanhoozer draws on 1 Corinthians 4 to argue powerfully for reading and teaching the Bible as drama. As Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he says this: “For, I think, God has exhibite...
Colossians 3:12-14, 1 Peter 3:8-9, Philippians 2:3-4, James 1:19-20, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:16-18, Romans 3:23
In any polarized situation, the overriding human tendency is to draw a line with oneself and one’s allies on the good side and the opposing party on the wicked side, with very little attempt made by e...
Paul’s insight that Gentiles are co-heirs, co-members, and co-participants in the gospel is not a mere sociological adjustment—it is a radical theological revelation.
Ephesians 4:32, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 22:37-39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 John 1:9, Romans 3:23
Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...
There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. Think about it; most of your best friends are those who encourage you. You don’t have many strong rela...
1 John 1:9, Luke 6:37, Romans 12:10, Proverbs 15:1, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, James 5:16
The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we bla...
Holy Trinity, Community of Love, Draw your children together Across human boundaries Across denominations Draw us together in your creative light Awaken us to collaboration and mutual callings Quick t...
It takes a lifetime to fathom Jesus; it takes a lifetime to appropriate Jesus, it takes a lifetime to be clothed with Jesus. And the question comes to each of us, have we ‘put off the old man with his...
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 ...
Preaching Commentary 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...
2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, Philippians 2:12-13, James 1:22-25, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Peter 2:2-3, Hebrews 12:11
There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...
Dan B. Allender, in his book Leading Character, tells the story of a friend whose daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. He kept news of his daughter’s illness to himself, fearing that his employees wo...