Jesus described the church by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard…” (Matt. 20:1). We read these verses and easily understand what He was talking about. We know who that Man was who owned the vineyard, but have we spent enough time thinking about what the Owner…

The transforming truth of Jesus Christ, we learn in the first part of 1 Timothy 3:16, is certain, supreme, clear and relevant to our lives.  Paul then outlines six pivotal elements of this truth, which are critical to understanding and appreciating the magnitude of Jesus Christ and His plan for us. First, Paul emphasizes the great incarnation: “He was manifested in the…

Maybe you’ve seen them in a political speech. Maybe you’ve seen them in news interviews. Perhaps you’ve seen them on signs. Very likely, you see them every day in your social media. It seems like you just can’t get aways from them. I’m talking about “buzzwords.” According to Miriam Webster, a buzzword is “an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of…

There are some really long words in our language. I remember years ago when I first heard what was at that time the longest one. It was antidisestablishmentarianism. I learned it when watching the national spelling bee. It took me a while to learn it, but I mastered how to say it. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is not recognized as a word, but a nonsense…

There are 31,102 verses in the Bible.  That’s a lot!  If you memorized one verse per day, you could have the whole Bible memorized in just over 85 years.  Of course, every verse in the Bible ultimately is about Jesus Christ—Someone is coming (summary of the Old Testament books), Someone is here (summary of Matthew through John), Someone is coming again (summary…

Every first day of the week, members of the Lord’s church assemble to worship their heavenly Father according to the Scriptures (cf. Acts 20:6-7; 1 Cor. 11:18-32; 1 Cor. 16:1-2). Many people, however, feel that going to church is not for them. They say they don’t need a building to worship God. They can worship God anywhere in their daily living. This…

The return from Babylonian captivity is truly one of the least known parts of the history of Israel but marks one of the most remarkable periods in the lives of God’s chosen people. When Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, left the city of Jerusalem, he left nothing but ruins behind. The walls were gone and no longer was there a temple, a priesthood,…

Sometimes we may equate “being in an auditorium” with worshiping.  Sometimes we may associate “gathering with other people on Sunday” as worship.  But, when we are (1) in an auditorium (2) with other Christians on Sunday, do we actually worship?  That is a critical question to answer. We have a God-given responsibility to “worship” God (John 4:23-24), to “praise” God (Heb. 13:15),…