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Danny pointed me toward Karen Sudduth’s wonderful site today. If you subscribe to our church’s daily devotional, you’re familiar with some of Karen’s writing. When I read the devotional that our church emailed us today, I knew who the author was within the first few sentences. There’s not many people that I can recognize through [...]

I’ve had people ask me from time to time, “Why do you suppose God chose Israel?”  It’s an understandable question.  Why did God choose this particular people – descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?  It’s funny, the people of Israel probably asked themselves the same question from time to time.  When we ask the question [...]

Today’s lesson scripture opens our week of study of Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was one of those Jews who had done well and prospered under the Persian kings.  His brother, Hanani, came back from a visit to Jerusalem and told Nehemiah how the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and its gates destroyed.  In these opening verses [...]

Despite defeat, exile and hardship on their return to Judea, the Jewish people persevered in faith to God.  The expression of this faith is found in today’s lesson scripture:
1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation [...]

I had occasion recently to talk with a friend and college room-mate who is now a family practioner in Florida.  He takes a whole person and spiritual approach to medicine and to some his methods may even seem unconventional.  One of the comments he made while we were talking about the power of faith to heal, [...]

We all do this don’t we?  Even when we know at heart that God’s will is that we do something or follow some path, we look for proof.  “Is that really you, God?”  We want assurance now because to rely on faith is frightening.
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might [...]

We’ve talked a good bit about the consequences of rebellion and disobedience over the past few weeks – and there certainly are such consequences – mainly brought upon ourselves by ourselves.  And, while we have studied instances of God’s  wrath in this past quarter, by far and away the God of the Old Testament is, [...]

Here is where we come to a cross-roads.  From the Garden we have rebelled – we have wanted to “be like God”, while having no understanding of or predilection for keeping covenant like God.  Moreover, we rebel because God doesn’t follow our logic – our view of how the world should operate.  That’s true four [...]

In approaching today’s lesson scripture we need to put ourselves in the place of that lawyer who asked Jesus what he must do to save himself:
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What [...]

I was talking with Buzzy Mize the other day and he pointed out that Methodism is the only denomination that has its beginnings in the lecture halls and chambers of colleges.  I thought of that as I read Adam Clarke’s commentary on today’s lesson scripture.  In writing about verse 30, Clarke quotes the following lines:
All the [...]