circumstances on The Ancient World

In this poem by Lord Byron, the poet re-imagines the ancient battle of Salamis, in which Xerxes, king of Persia was defeated by a Greek coalition in 480 B.C. The poem highlights how quickly the fortun...

The resurrection was inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did...

Preaching Commentary The resurrection was inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different f...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text What is the role of prayer on life’s journey? For James, its role is central. A letter that has been historically bashed for an emphasis on “works” over “fa...

Summary of the Text What is the role of prayer on life’s journey? For James, its role is central. A letter that has been historically bashed for an emphasis on “works” over “faith” is immensely pract...

A source of the intensest pleasure earthlings can experience, sex has also been a source of vexatious trouble for the human family since the beginning of history.

Christian leaders tend to use the Bible as their exclusive source for framing Christian speaking and living. Yet only through a kind of “thick description” of our present circumstances, being attentiv...

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who li...

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...

Preaching Commentary 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, Jar...

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

In the frigid waters around Greenland are countless icebergs, some little and some gigantic. If you’d observe them carefully, you’d notice that sometimes the small ice floes move in one direction whil...

Seek not in courts, nor palaces, Nor royal curtains draw; But search the stable, see your God, Extended on the straw.

Heavenly Father, we confess that we often forget Who it is that we worship. You, Lord, are the great God Almighty and our Heavenly Father. Yet, at times, we deny that truth by living in fear and respo...

The answer to decision-making is not putting the Lord to the test by ascribing arbitrary significance to events in his providence ... God has not authorized us to make oracles of events.

God our Father, Lord our Shepherd, Spirit of the Living God, One in Three … and Three in One: We praise You our Creator, Savior, and Provider. By Your grace, we lack nothing. You feed us in body...

On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging t...

Leader: May the Lord, who is your stronghold, help you in times of trouble. You who know the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as your God, trust in the Lord. He will not let those who seek Hi...

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

We confess our sins to you, today, O Lord. We confess that we sometimes find it difficult to believe that you are actually involved in our day-to-day experiences, that you actually impact our circumst...

It is true that he [Christ] has awful majesty; he is the great God, and is infinitely high above you; but there is this to encourage and embolden the poor sinner, that Christ is a man as well as God; ...

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,...

Where transformation is actually carried out is in our real life, where we dwell with God and our neighbors. . . . First, we must accept the circumstances we constantly find ourselves in as the place ...

Lord, You have authority in all places, times, and circumstances. Lord, You are good in all places, times, and circumstances.  Lord, meet us here, now in all our many needs for You to move.

Under all the circumstances of life, we shall find that these divine songs suit ourselves and meet our own souls’ need at every turn.

God is in control, and therefore in EVERYTHING I can give thanks - not because of the situation but because of the One who directs and rules over it.

Yet, while Your love is consistent, eternal and strong, Our love is fickle, finite and easily swayed. So, we confess today that we have not loved You as You deserve, with our whole selves – heart, min...

No Christian should feel ‘under’ the circumstances, because the circumstances are under God.

What’s madness but nobility of soul / At odds with circumstance?

My whole outlook upon everything that happens to me should be governed by these three things: my realization of who I am, my consciousness of where I am going, and my knowledge of what awaits me when ...