After Lydia and her family were baptized into Christ (in Acts 16), Paul cast a demon out of a certain slave girl, which enraged her masters. A multitude was stirred up against Paul and Silas, who were “seized,” “dragged into the marketplace,” “beaten with rods” with “many stripes,” thrown “into the inner prison” with their feet “fastened…in the stocks” (16:19-24). Although a…

Folks, our world (and that includes some of us) has a “lumping” problem! And, for the sake of Christ, it needs to stop! We must stop lumping people into indiscriminate categories and then making baseless judgments about a person or  persons in “that category.” This happens when people/we say, “Black people are ___. White people are ___. Men are ___. Women are…

We are living in interesting times. Cultural trends seem to be shifting further and further away from clear Biblical truth. We are told that we are living in “post-truth” times. As a result, “soils” around us are changing. Many hearts that were once “good soil” now seem to be “thorny”; many “thorny” soils now seem “stony”; and many “stony” soils now seem…

If you put “light” and “darkness” in the same room, what would they have in common? Could they find a level of fellowship that they could enjoy? If you put “righteousness” and “lawlessness” in the same room, what would they have in common? Could they establish a partnership together? If you put Christ and Satan in the same room, what would they…

Sometimes we whisper so that we don’t disturb someone who is sleeping. Sometimes we whisper about a surprise birthday party to keep it a secret. But, other times we whisper so that a person doesn’t know that we are saying something about her, that we don’t want her to know that we are saying, to someone with whom we should not be…

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, Joshua commanded that twelve stones be taken from the river and set up in Gilgal as a reminder to God’s people of the power of God, when they “crossed over this Jordan on dry land” (Josh. 4:22).  Reminders can be a powerful thing!   What sort of reminders can we establish today to help us to…

When you read through the Bible and come across a woman named Rahab, the first thing you learn about her is not the most favorable in the eyes of God. We learn in Joshua 2:1 that she was “a harlot.” Why does the Bible choose to tell us that? God could have left that particular detail out and the rest of the…

Some calendars now have Monday as the first day of the week. How does that affect Christians? Are we supposed to worship on Monday now? Is Sunday the seventh day now? Christians worship on the first day of the week (which is Sunday) because that is the day specified and authorized by God. The Jews were to “remember the Sabbath” (Ex. 20:8),…