Our Time Is Valuable. The life of a leader is packed with challenges. Thankfully, with challenges come opportunities! And the more the Lord blesses our leadership, the more opportunities seem to arise. As the opportunities stack up, it can be difficult to know what to accept and what to decline. Then there’s that opportunity that we…
Paul said it, but do we believe it? One of the most quoted New Testament verses within the evangelical church. As Paul wrestled with his imprisonment, considering life and death, he wrote to the Philippians church: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21) Much has been written and…
Motive Tells A Story. Motive often tells the story of a person’s heart. The mental, relational and most importantly, spiritual motivation behind a word or deed, really does matter. For example, Jesus teaches past the act of murder to focus on the motivation behind murder, which is anger. (Mt. 5:21-22) Jesus teaches past adultery, to focus on the motive of adultery, which…
Love is a loaded word. I live in the North and I hunt. When I say, “I love Black Bears!” it means that Black Bear meat is delicious! I’m telling you; you want a great breakfast sausage, try Black Bear! (#NorthernPork) But if I said, “I love dogs!” it does not mean that I think dog…
You Can Be A Saint. Take a look at the opening greeting in Philippians 1: “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:” (Phil. 1:1) This letter is addressed to, “…all the saints…” Depending on your church background, this word ‘saints‘ may be a…
Opportunity For Families, Opportunity For The Church. In 1 Timothy 5, God leads Paul to write the following to his pastoral apprentice Timothy: “7 Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame. 8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith…
Paul’s Instruction To Timothy. In the Book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes to his young apprentice, Timothy who has recently become the pastoral overseer of the Ephesian Church. In chapter 5, Paul gives Timothy some instruction on how to serve and care for the Elderly, including widows. Let’s break this down, beginning in verse 3…
“My Spouse Left Me“ This week, we’ve been talking about single parenthood. Becoming a single parent after the death of a spouse is a tragic ordeal. But divorce is actually the more prevalent cause. Too often divorce takes place under situations of marital unfaithfulness, abuse, neglect or abandonment. These are difficult situations to navigate Biblically….
How Singleness Looks Today. How is singleness playing out in our culture? This week, we’ve been studying singleness. Specifically, we looked at Paul’s instruction to the unmarried Christians in the Corinthian church, found in 1 Cor. 7. As I described the immoral culture of Corinth in yesterday’s post, maybe some of you thought, “That sounds a lot like…
We All Have a Lead Role. I want to do a follow-up post to yesterday’s post titled, “The Extras of the Gospel“. We started this week by imagining the whole Gospel story had been culminated into a film series. Then we looked at the final passage of Paul‘s second letter to Timothy as scene from the movie, “Letters…
Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia & Us. This week, we’re been exploring the final scene of Paul’s second letter to Timothy. In chapter 4, verse 21, we get to a few folks that send their greetings through Paul: “Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers and sisters.” (4:21b) Believe it or…
The Supporting Cast A couple of days ago, I introduced this concept of looking at the Bible and the Gospel story like film series. Moreover, looking at each book of the Bible like a single movie in that Gospel Film Series. Under that concept, we started looking at the final scene of Paul‘s second letter to Timothy: “19 Greet…