Jeremiah lived a hard life. The Babylonians were the mortal enemy of Israel. They ultimately ended the kingdom of Judah, destroyed the Temple and gates and sent them all into exile. God gave Jeremiah the job to tell the people to surrender to the Babylonians. So, the people from top to bottom hated him. God had him live as a traitor to his own people. He began as a normal prophet telling the people to repent or God swill destroy …
The Bible has 66 books written over 1400 years by mostly Jewish men. It has many genres of literature from history to poetry . It says many many things. Thus, the risks exist that we can make the Bible say what we want. I would like to add that we all do it. It is never good as we are making God instead of finding him and letting him change us. Any time we go to the Bible seeking to …
Romans 1 can feel dark. What starts us one downward path sometimes gets us lost in Romans 1 when the Apostle Paul announces all the bad impulses that come upon people. It is a sad path. Lets avoid the downward path. But all the ugly things Paul notes have one surprising cause. He first says: 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may …
God uses bad people to do his work and even horrible events to accomplish his purposes. Does this not put him in bad light as he is using apparently bad means to accomplish good things? Habakkuk asked this very question and a look at this recent century does much more. See what Habakkuk says: Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow …
God is not an individualist. In fact, the Trinity is beyond our understanding. God in three persons in perfect unity is our standard. Jesus further said in John 17: 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have …
As an American living in China, I keep an eye on what the ambassador to China and the one for the US say? Why do I do this? The ambassador has no real power. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthian 5:18-20 that we are Ambassadors for Christ. See below. What does he mean by this? 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself …
Where are you a citizen is a question that most people answer by saying USA or wherever they have political connections. That is not wrong. However, as Christians we have a much more important citizenship. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, Just before this, the passage says “their minds are set of earthly things.” Are our minds set on earthly things and our earthly citizenship? I live in China and …
God gave us important work. When God decided to make us his children, he did not simply make us cupids with harps. He made us partners in reaching the world for Christ. God loves us. He doesn’t just give us a free pass to heaven as reward for believing him. He gave us meaning in life. We are not left to grow up, marry, have kids, get old and die. We can take part in the most important work in …
Here is a well known passage with 3 valuable things in God we can put to work: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God. The small ‘a’ next to humbly means many respected translators feel the word prudently is more correct, but humbly has most. Now, the text. In the old testament era of so many needs to sacrifice and …
The Four gospels, Matthew Mark, Luke, and John are quite similar as the all follow the same life of Jesus. Why not just one authoritative gospel? God has his reasons, but I say we are blessed. Matthew portrays Jesus as a master teacher and lays out 5 great speeches of Jesus. How precious is the complete Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes? Mark presents Jesus as a man of action. How much insight do we get from Jesus family …
