The very first instruction of God recorded in the Bible is found in Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’” Imagine for a moment that God had given light the freedom to make its own choices. When God said, “Let there be light,” would it bother you if the very next statement said, “But light was too busy at the…

There is a feeble argument often attempted to make a significant difference between an elder’s qualification to be “not given to wine” (1 Tim. 3:3) and a deacon’s qualification to be “not given to much wine” (1 Tim. 3:8). Can a deacon drink a little, while an elder is to totally abstain? Here’s the real question: if the Bible condemns something in…

Have you ever heard someone say about another person (who had withdrawn himself and was spending all of his time alone and separated from his family, friends and church), “Well, he’s just trying to find himself”? May I suggest to you that if someone is trying to “find himself,” and has undertaken that endeavor while separating himself from the church, that the…

It’s a tough job being a parent! The hours: 168 hours a week (and that’s only because there aren’t 169 hours or more available in a week). The pay: below minimum wage, way below minimum wage; in fact, you have pay to be a parent (instead of getting paid). Hazards: well,  there are too many to list (and we don’t want to…

Some parents’ approach to parenting is to wait (even longingly wait) for their children to make a mistake, so that they can pounce on them, tell them what they did wrong and seek to correct it. Some couples’ approach to marriage is to wait (even longingly wait) for their spouse to make a mistake, so that the mistake-free spouse can pounce on…

In a day of disposable marriages and empty vows, how are there couples who have been married for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years? Our godless society and liberal media might be able to come up with some snarky answer to that question, but they would never unearth the truth (if they tried) that holds these marriages together amidst a dearth of…

The apostle John enjoyed a special relationship with Jesus. Not only was he one of the twelve apostles, John was inspired to refer to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7, 20). Then, in the short epistle of First John, the apostle emphasized a Christian’s special relationship with the Lord–“truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son…

The last verse of Psalm 96 begins with the word “for.” That is not unusual, for other psalms follow that same pattern and the word is found about 9,000 times in the entire Bible. The word “for” often introduces a cause, the effects of which have already been enumerated. (Example: “For” in Galatians 3:27 is the cause [baptized] of the effect in…