the bible on Discipleship

What many practice and promote in America passes for genuine faith in Christ, but 80 percent of Christians don’t read the Bible daily. Furthermore, only 1 percent of Christians in America believe we a...

Loving and gracious God, we admit to You that we have distorted Your Word. Too often we pick and choose which part of Your Word to proclaim. Shying away from Your call to give all who we are, we only ...

[Speaking about art] As you climb the stairs of quality, you’ll meet individual works that you’ll need for the rest of your life, works that will thrill you, energize you, lift your soul, soothe you, ...

Pastor: Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. God of mercy, You provide us with Your Holy Word, that we might know and believe in Ch...

Your words and ways are Perfect Sure Right Clear Your words and ways are Pure True Righteous Every one Their value, beyond price Their goodness, beyond delight Their counsel, en...

We all desire to learn from our role models, but some take this ambition to the next level. The writer Hunter S. Thompson was so obsessed with the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and specifically his...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Confronting the Giant Psalm 119 is the longest of all the Psalms and for this reason it has received the nickname “the Giant Psalm.” The Psalm is a...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Remembering and Rejoicing in God's Word AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Confronting the Giant Psalm 119 is the longest...

We artful dodgers act as if we do not understand the New Testament, because we realize full well that [if we let on that we did] we should have to change our way of life drastically. That is why we in...

Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our li...

We think knowledge of the Bible is all that matters, so we fail to attend to our character, our soul, and our relationships. Our way of living the Christian life leaves all of these things unchanged.

Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and g...

After a sojourn in the United States where he experienced the vibrancy of Black churches, Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931 to teach at the University of Berlin. His pastoral ministry co...

Dear Lord and God, I thank and praise You for Your Word, the Holy Scriptures, and for the promise that Your Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth. Give me a teachable spirit so that I may learn all...

An Unhurried Practice: Reading Scripture Slowly One of the disciplines that has been an important part of my spiritual journey over the years is reading and reflecting on Scripture.  In recent years,...

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

Enlighten us, O God, by your Spirit, in the understanding of your Word, and grant us the grace to receive it in true fear and humility, that we may learn to put our trust in you, to fear and honor you...

To know the Word of God, to live the Word of God, to preach the Word, to teach the Word, is the sum of all wisdom, the heart of all Christian service.

O Lord, your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Give us grace to receive your truth in faith and love, and strength to follow on the path you set before us; through Jesus Christ, Ame...

Pastor: Jesus said, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” All: ...

New Testament theology is ‘inherently self-involving as it summons the reader to believe, confess, obey, and understand the entirety of one’s existence—both her or his thinking and willing—in light of...

The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.

"Rub Some Bible" on It? My wife Gem and I were discussing a podcast she’d heard in which the host talked about quoting the Bible “for those who feel the need for that sort of authority.” ...

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...

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...

In Francis Chan’s latest book “Letters to the Church,” he shares about his first year after leaving his large church in suburban Los Angeles to start something new. It was something Francis himself wa...

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minut...

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...

North American Christians are trained to believe that they are capable of reading the Bible without spiritual and moral transformation.”