romans on Faith and Doubt

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope...

Faith and pessimism are incompatible. To be sure, we are not starry-eyed idealists; we are down to earth realists. We know well that sin is ingrained in human nature and in human society. We are not e...

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

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...

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, ou...

Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . ....

For some, faith begins with a hard shell, a rigid set of answers and platitudes that keep them safe but eventually prevent them from growing into who they could be. The system that was initially prote...

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a dr...

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

In his introduction to Scott Sauls’ Book, Irresistable Faith, Bob Goff tells a story about a summer adventure hitchhiking across New England, which would ultimately lead to staying with a hermit in Ma...

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 ...

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

Holy God, we confess that we have been lukewarm about living our faith in Jesus each day. We put off to tomorrow what we know in our hearts you want to happen today. We go through the motions of relig...

Holy God, You call us to a passionate, all-consuming faith. Yet, so frequently, we give You half-hearted obedience or distracted, leftover moments of our time. You tell us that we are the salt of the ...

Context Paul in Ephesus: His Third Missionary Journey This passage describes Paul’s arrival in Ephesus during his third missionary journey. He finds there some disciples who know only of John’s bapt...

The Christian faith always has to do with flesh and blood, time and space, more specifically with your flesh and blood and mine, with the time and space that day by day we are all of us involved with,...

At a Christian high school, a theology teacher strode to the front of the classroom, where he drew a heart on one side of the blackboard and a brain on the other. The two are as divided as the two sid...

The great danger of Christian discipleship is that we should have two religions: a glorious, biblical Sunday gospel that sets us free from the world, that in the cross and resurrection of Christ makes...

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to makes us love one another.

Live out your faith this week by doing good deeds, God is with you.

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

This passage from Joshua underscores a central element of the biblical view of meditation: obedience. This is in marked contrast to the various forms of meditation in many religions around the world. ...

In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...

Preaching Commentary Context Paul in Ephesus: His Third Missionary Journey This passage describes Paul’s arrival in Ephesus during his third missionary journey. He finds there some disciples who k...

Sisters and brothers, if the torch of your faith is lit right now, it might fizzle out within fifteen minutes of leaving here today. So refill the oil of your faith. Trim the charred ends away from yo...

All-knowing God, we often believe our way is the best way. In our arrogance, we ignore your will and your ways. We confess our dependence on knowledge and our independence from you. Thank you that you...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...