Back in 1982, Faberge Organics Shampoo rolled out a commercial that forever stuck in my mind. The same year, as I wrapped up my Freshman year at UNC-Chapel Hill, one of the staff members for Campus Crusade for Christ “challenged” me to be a part of their discipleship movement on campus. It was a fancy…
When Paul talks about honoring the elders in today’s Bible reading*, he isn’t talking about honoring your parents or honoring people who are older than you. He’s talking about honoring church elders. Elders in the First Century church were pastors and mature men who had been called to provide spiritual and financial leadership for the…
We begin reading 1 Timothy in today’s Bible reading.* Paul reminds Timothy that he should teach people not to teach false doctrine or pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. Why? Because they “promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan which operates by faith”. (1 Timothy 1:3-4, CSB) Paul refers to Timothy as his “true…
Again, I’ll highlight what I have said before, that when you see a word or phrase repeated in close proximity in the Bible, it’s a signal of its importance. In today’s Bible reading*, Paul uses reconcile five times in only three verses. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) The word reconcile is used in accounting. You may have…
When the New Testament writers told their stories, they had the memorized and printed Word of Scripture to draw from. Their Bible (our Old Testament) was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. It had been recorded in the language of the common people at the time. By the First Century, many people in what is now…
I mentioned yesterday the importance of noting repeated words and phrases in a limited number of Bible verses. In today’s Bible reading*, “pain” and its derivatives occur seven times in 2 Corinthians 2:1-7. Evidently, not all was well between the Apostle and the church at Corinth. Where the first paragraph in 2 Corinthians 1 was…
