When I think about Timothy and Titus as men, I can't help but think about their personal relationship with the apostle Paul. These men knew and were mentored by the great Paul, who penned some of the most powerful verses in our New Testament! I am a tad envious of the lives that these men…
I always knew that grace was God's undeserved favor. Even when I did not deserve it, Jesus died for my sins so I wouldn't have to go to hell. But to my shame, that is pretty much where my thoughts on grace stopped. I didn't meditate on the implications of grace: what his grace meant…
For the last couple days I have been reading the pastoral epistles---Paul's two letters to Timothy and his letter to Titus. Paul wrote these three letters to young men who had just been put in leadership positions in the church to give them advice on how to be good pastors; as a young minister myself,…
Genesis 23 starts off with a small story, almost incidental, that never caught my attention until a few days ago. Abraham's wife Sarah, the "mother of nations" (Genesis 17:16) who conceived Abraham's miracle child Isaac, died at 127 years old. Doubtless this was heartbreaking for Abraham--he had followed the Lord for years now with this…
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the…
I was reading the book of Hebrews the other day, and the Lord began to comfort me with a couple passages from the book of Hebrews. It is easy to get frustrated with certain factors in our lives: we're human. We are flesh and blood, and we have limitations and temptations that often beset us.…
When people think of prophets and prophecy, they normally think of an elect group of people with supernatural insight and power. These are not your average preachers! They have an extraordinary zeal to reach the lost; they dream dreams or have trances from God; they speak riddles or predict the future. Even those of us…
The gospel of John tells us the first miracle that our Lord performed. While he and his disciples were at a wedding in Cana, the wedding party ran out of wine (2:1-3). To meet the need, Jesus commanded the servants to fill six stone water pots, typically used for ritual washing, with water and then…
Six days before his last supper with his disciples Jesus visited Bethany, a small town just outside of Jerusalem (John 12:1). While he was there his friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha "made him a supper" (12:2), and hosted it at the house of Simon the Leper (Matthew 26:6ff). Lazarus' family had been close friends of the…
Earlier yesterday morning I had some spare time and so I sat and read my Bible for a little less than an hour. In that time I was able to read about two thirds of Revelation in one uninterrupted sitting. Reading Revelation like this gave me a new appreciation for the book: I started making connections I…
