Posts from January 2025

How do you pay for something that you purchase today? Who do you pay? When do you pay? Where do you pay? The answer, I suppose, depends on what the product or service is and who is making the purchase. Consider how much variation there is in paying for something today. WHO do you pay? You might pay one person at a restaurant window, and then another person gives you what you paid for. You might pay a bank for…

There are some Scriptures that clearly state, “No one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18; 1 John 4:12; cf. 1 Tim. 6:16 1 John 4:20). But there are other verses that indicate Moses and company “saw the God of Israel” (Ex. 24:10), Jacob saw “God face to face” (Gen. 32:30), and Moses spoke with God “face to face” (Num. 12:8). How can some Scriptures say that no one saw God and other Scriptures say that people saw God?…

You know the trick. A magician fans a deck of cards out in your direction and bids you to, “Pick a card, any card.” There are so many choices. They basically all look the same, until you take one and look at the other side of it. While that card bears some similarities to others in the deck (maybe the same suit, or maybe the same number), it is still a unique card among many. But, in the game of…

Modern culture has created a mold for today’s young men and young women, and too many are allowing themselves to be poured right into it. Young people are depicted as self-absorbed, ungrateful, anti-social, materialistic individuals, who are given to a lifestyle of instant satisfaction, sexual abandonment and irresponsible behavior. (Notice, that is not my view, but how young people are often depicted by others in today’s society.) In the home, they are portrayed as “running the show”—knowing more than the…

Paul saw Christians as being athletes for Jesus. They were competing in the arena while they were surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1). They were individuals in a race which must be run according to rules (2 Tim. 2:5). They were fighters/boxers who were not just “punching into the air” but had precise blows planned for the enemy (1 Cor. 9:24). Like Paul, they intended to run the race and finish the course, knowing that a crown…