When our children were young and curious about conversation between me and my wife, I would sometimes begin to venture into a topic that might be inappropriate for the girls, and Raye Jeanne would look at me and say, “Little pitchers have big ears…” It was her way of saying, “Be careful what you say […]
Read More They’re listening…We don’t (generally) like conflict. Typically, conflict is painful. We’ve been hurt by conflict. And we’ve hurt others in conflict. So it’s hard to affirm a statement like, “there are benefits to conflict.” Yet, when conflict is handled well, there are benefits to it. And Acts 15 demonstrates some of those benefits. This chapter recounts […]
Read More The benefits of conflictEvery seminary student has a dream about what vocational ministry will be like. Every Sunday School, Awana, and VBS teacher has an ideal for what will constitute an effective class or ministry effort. Every missionary, pastor, and elder has at least a mental standard (and often a written standard) to evaluate the impact of a […]
Read More Ministry realitiesAsk the question, “What is the gospel?” (even in the church) and you will get almost as many answers to that question as there are people. There just does not seem to be much consensus on that question. In his book, What is the Gospel? Greg Gilbert recounts some of the more common responses to […]
Read More The simple gospelChristians are prone to talking much about prayer and praying too little. We have attend conferences on praying, we preach sermons about praying, and we read books about praying. We develop methods for keeping track of prayer requests (I now have an app on my phone to do that task) and we frequently tell our […]
Read More Peter was sleeping…Several years ago, Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, offered WGN Chicago Radio sports-talk host David Kaplan $50,000 to change his name legally to “Dallas Maverick.” When Kaplan politely declined, Cuban sweetened the offer. Cuban would pay Kaplan $100,000 and donate $100,000 to Kaplan’s favorite charity if he took the name for one […]
Read More Little ChristsJesus’ last command to the disciples also was a commission — “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) The disciples would go to […]
Read More Witnesses of the gospelDo you believe the gospel? Specifically, do you believe the power of the gospel to change and transform the lives of those who believe the gospel? I don’t ask the question rhetorically; I ask it actually. Do you believe the gospel has the ability to save anyone and transform his life? Do you believe that […]
Read More Do you believe the gospel?Grace has been defined as “undeserved blessing freely bestowed on man by God…” If that’s true (and I believe it is), the opening verses of Acts 8 do not appear to be very gracious. “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church […]
Read More Two words of graceWhy are we surprised when unbelievers reject the gospel? Why are we surprised when unbelievers reject the gospel emphatically? Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 serves as a demonstration of the history of the rejection of God by the nation of Israel. “And he [Moses] supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance […]
Read More Why are we surprised?As the early church began to grow exponentially, it quickly became essential to delineate roles and responsibilities in the church. So in Acts 6, deacons were selected to assist the elders so that the elders could carry out their primary responsibilities of “prayer and the ministry of the Word” (v. 4). Now it might seem […]
Read More The ministry of the WordIn 1874 Francis Ridley Havergal wrote the hymn “Take My Life and Let It Be” and sent it to a friend and essentially forgot about — until she saw it in a magazine four years later. She read it again for the first time in four years and was caught by the stanza, “take my […]
Read More Determined to givePart of our Scripture reading this morning is Acts 7-9. And this morning when I checked my email, I found this meditation on Acts 8 from Desiring God — “What the Ethiopian Eunuch Means for You.” What this story from Acts 8 means, the author concludes, is that Luke wants the story of this emasculated […]
Read More What the Ethiopian Eunuch Means for YouI have been challenged by something I read recently — “I worry that our lives are like soap operas. We can go for months and not tune into them, then six months later we look in and the same stuff is still going on.” The urgency of the immediate prevents us from seeing the impact […]
Read More Uneducated and untrained men – changed
Words of Grace 