I often exhort folks to read the Word of God for themselves. The most common response that I get is, “When I try to read the bible, I don’t seem to get much out of it.” Every person who is well-versed in the scriptures started out with exactly that same feeling. So my advice is: “Keep...

I’ll never forget the first time that I boarded a cruise ship,we had to book our tickets months in advance so we had spent quite a while in eager anticipation. We got to the port, found our dock, checked our bags, waited for hours, got our ID cards. At last we climbed the ramp structure to...

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the...

In the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, many of the sacrifices required that salt be used. Here’s one example: You shall present them before the Lord, and the priests shall sprinkle salt on them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord. (Ezekiel 43:24) The apostle Paul picks up this imagery and...

In John chapter nine, when Jesus healed a man born blind it created huge problems for His enemies: It meant that Jesus actually had the power to heal people! “The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his...

When Jesus healed a man born blind it created huge problems for His enemies: It meant that Jesus actually had the power to heal people! When they could no longer deny the fact of the miracle, they rejected its obvious significance and attacked the former blind man: The Jews did not believe that he had been...

Why do people who are faithful to God undergo undeserved trials and suffering? We can answer that question directly from the bible by comparing people who had the “big picture” of the real world with those who didn’t. In the book of Psalms, there are a number of places where the Psalmist will express dismay and...

In him we were also chosen, . . .in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, live for the praise of His glory.  (Eph. 1:11-12) The apostle Paul wrote these words to a little band of first century Christians who lived in the city of Ephesus. As he continues he...