christians on Salt

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus likens his followers to salt and light. While the concept of light may resonate more easily with us today, the significance of salt might be less apparent. But not so...

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Pastor: Lord Jesus Christ, in this world of unrest and strife You founded Your holy Christian Church through faith as a kingdom of peace and joy. You have established this worldwide communion of sai...

Christians are like manure: spread them out and they help everything grow better, but keep them in one big pile and they stink horribly.

Deacon or other leader Let us pray for the Church and for the world. Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess your Name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glo...

Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all th...

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 ...

A student of mine called me late one evening after worship. He was really excited on the other end, and I had to ask him to slow down. So, he says, “Mother Kim, this strange thing happened to me today...

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this gospel, especially after chapter 20 has ...

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses excluded from the lectionary pericope). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this go...

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you ...

At the beginning of the third century in North Africa, persecution of Christians broke out in Carthage. One of the cate­chumens taken into custody was Perpetua, a noblewoman still nursing her son. Whe...

Pastor: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and i...

A solitary Christian who thinks he can live independently of the church functions about as well as a thumb severed from its hand.

For a long time all Christians called each other “saints.” They were all saints regardless of how well or badly they lived, of how experienced or inexperienced they were. The word saint did not refer ...

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins— is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?

The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ...

All great Christians have been wounded souls.

I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? . . . The point is that he felt huma...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

Q: "Are you a Christian?" A: "Ask my neighbor."

Leader: Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience All: bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against an...

Preaching Commentary A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our mon...

In a class that I was in once, I saw a man with his well-worn, heavily marked Bible open before him, playing a game of “trap the teacher.” He should have known better than to try to trap this particul...

Those who have to be ordered to love God usually believe that obedience involves those excluding all other loves, to the extent of hating the world, the flesh, and even the self. We therefore find amo...

Leader: Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, "Where I am going you cannot come." People: "A n...

Several years ago, a radio DJ in my home state of Tennessee was interviewing a friend of mine, Jim Wallis. This DJ was an interesting cacophony of things: he was a Jewish country music DJ who didn’t s...

Pastor: Gracious God, Your Word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our way. It pierces the darkness of our sinful world with the brightness of Your grace and shows us Your truth. We thank You fo...