When I’ve preached on the Parable of the Sower, I’ve thought that the thorn-infested soil best describes the spiritual danger that threatens faith in Christ in our particular day and age. In the parable, the seed sown in that soil fails to result in any fruit because the thorns choke the life out of the…

At our worship service, before I read and preach from the Scriptures, I always say something like: “Please open your Bibles and turn to such-and-such a page.” Recently I was struck by how dated and even quaint those words are beginning to sound in a church where a good many people use their smartphones or…

I distilled this from my sermon this morning, and I hope to have it printed in the local paper: Christians may be better at identifying sexual sins than at communicating the beautiful design and purpose God has for human sexuality. For that reason, in discussing the Bible’s teaching on sexuality, we should first understand what…

Unless your life resembles that of our fabulously lazy cat Buttercup, whose entire existence consists of one long nap punctuated by the occasional rodent hunt, you’re probably pretty busy with more important things to do. Maybe even “crazy busy” – you have more “must-do” items than time, you’re often stressed, and sometimes you feel that…

Here is an article I’ll send into the local paper for their “Faith” section. It’s from my sermon on Sunday (one elder congratulated me on preaching my first nine-point sermon!). Wealth is a blessing. If we have the resources for a comfortable life free from material need, that is a gift from God (1 Timothy…

In a word, “no”, but qualifications to follow! “Tithe” means “tenth,” and it was the portion of crops and livestock God commanded the Israelites to give to the Levites to support their labors at the tabernacle/temple (Lev. 27:30 – 33; Nu. 18:20 – 24). Being bound up with the entire Levitical priesthood, an old covenant…

The more I worked on last Sunday morning’s sermon, and then on this post yesterday based on that sermon, the more I considered the way God has provided us means for nurturing and sustaining faith in Christ in a world that denies and suppresses the truth about God and creation. I wrote that the means of grace…

You know the indecisive type – his mind bends this way and that; he is irresolute, unsteady, unsure. He’s never able to commit to one way or another but constantly changes course. You can’t take him at his word, and you certainly wouldn’t entrust your well-being to someone so unstable. Thankfully God is not like…