A place for you.

I remember my dad saying to me that sometimes the very best way to deal with a problem was to approach it head on. Often we try to finesse our way around problems and never confront them directly. It is interesting to see how the early church dealt with the issue of the Jews binding circumcision on the Gentiles who had just become Christians. The Holy Spirit first clarified the nature and the history of circumcision. The Jews failed to…

The study of Paul’s life gives real insight into the doctrine of the freewill we have as we serve our God. In our arrogance sometimes we may think we are wise enough to determine what we should do. Take a moment to reflect on this as we look at Paul’s plan to go to Ephesus, Bithynia and Rome to preach the word. One cannot read the book of Acts without seeing Paul’s desire to get the gospel into the great…

The Bible expresses such profound truths in such simple ways that we read them and think we already know this truth, when in reality we do not know what we know! If these words intrigue you, then permit me to use God’s simple words to illustrate this. I vividly recall an experience from our early days in New Zealand in 1962. As we tried to learn more about the various religious groups meeting there, we visited a denomination I knew…

In Paul’s letter to Rome, he uses an interesting phrase. He said, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:11-12). Contextually, he may have not been talking about their salvation when they became Christians, nor salvation when Jesus returns. This was a salvation that was at hand…