thought exercise on Commands

The famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade includes these haunting lines: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred… Someone had blundered. Theirs not to reason why, ...

What do you suppose would happen if we paid attention to God’s commands? We don’t have to wonder, because He told us clearly: “If only you had paid attention to my commands, / your peace would have be...

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

A youth group leader took his kids to a ski resort, where he saw two people skiing down the slopes one behind the other. They were so close it was almost as if they were tied together. When he got clo...

Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity. That is not to say that Judaism doesn’t have dogma or doctrine. It is rather to say that for Jews, the essence of the thing is a doing, an action...

Have you ever heard of the Greatest Books of the Western World collection? Published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1954, this comprehensive series was edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. A...

Jesus warns against greed and seeking wealth, because ultimately, money is fiction. Gold coins? Slips of paper? Ones and zeroes in a computer? They only have value because people think they do....

The God who shares power is a listener. Listening is not something that becomes necessary for God only after the world is created. Listening is who God is. In God’s very being, communication does not ...

Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi has a scene set in South Africa where the young Indian lawyer and a white clergyman are walking together on a boardwalk, contrary to South African law at the time. ...

I’m a huge advocate of catechisms, for example, having used this approach with my kids. I even wrote one. The strength of a catechism isn’t in memorizing the questions and answers of the catechism; th...

The US Navy SEALs are widely regarded as one of the most, if not the most, elite and effective fighting forces in the world. They are sent to do the most unique, complex, difficult, and critical missi...

Jesus’ brand of peacemaking is extensive. It embraces the breadth of humanity. But peacemaking is also intensive. The commands to love and pursue peace challenge us not only to resolve conflict but al...

During the 1992 presidential election, I (Rick) was directing the small group ministry at our church. Bill Clinton was running against George H. W. Bush, and given that many evangelicals found Bill Cl...

Consider an interview a Christian leader had with a reporter in 2018. The reporter asked why so many Christians were willing to support political candidates who revel in disobeying Jesus’ teachings. “...

For most of us, it’s a personal experience of poverty that helps us transcend our often narrow experience of the world. In this excerpt from theologian Marva J. Dawn, the former Regent College profess...

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

To have Abraham-like faith brings blessing (v 9). The result of living by the law is that we are “under a curse” (v 10). This “curse” has two aspects. Theologically, anyone who says-. I can be saved b...

In his important book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, seminary professor Andrew Purves sees a paradigm in Elijah’s ministry: For many years I have taken Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19 as a paradigm. Eli...

Donald Grey Barnhouse, former pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, tells the story of his revered professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Robert Dick Wilson, a renowned scholar of...

Ken Sande, the author and director of Peacemaker Ministries, puts it this way: “How do you want others to judge you? Do you want them to believe good about you instead of evil? To interpret your a...

With all the best intentions, we tend to flatten the biblical view on holiness until we squeeze out the dynamic nature of life with God. In an effort to own up to our own abiding sinfulness and highli...

The Jews were not the only religious people in the ancient world. There were others, such as the Akkadians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and they had their own creation stories. When one compares the ...

We humans may say, “Let there be light in this room,” but then we have to flick a switch or light a candle. Our words need deeds to back them up and can fail to achieve their purposes. God’s words, ho...

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone. Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the...

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

A freshly minted lieutenant wanted to impress the first private to enter his new office, and he pretended to be on the phone with a general so that the private would know he was somebody. “Yes sir, Ge...

My wife is a big fan of an advice column called “Ask a Manager.” The articles offer a variety of subjects, many of which are serious, but some are downright hilarious. They often capture the absurditi...

Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted e...

The most powerful choices we will make in our lives are not about specific decisions but about patterns of life: the nudges and disciplines that will shape all our other choices. This is especially tr...

Sometimes service means doing routine tasks even if we could have someone else do them. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln – possibly apocryphal but certainly in character – that a cabinet member ...