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“‘Do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on’” (Matthew 6:25). God gives you life and sustains your life. If you were living in Palestine during the time of Jesus, you might have been concerned about having the basics of life. That’s because there were times when the snows didn’t come to the mountains, and as a result the streams didn’t run. When the streams dried up, there was no water. Crops didn’t always produce either. They were subject to...

"[Love] believes all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). Love always expects the best of others. In Luke 15 Jesus tells a parable about a father who had two sons. The younger son asked for his share of the family inheritance, then left home and squandered it on sinful pursuits. When he realized his folly, he decided to return home and ask his father's forgiveness. So "he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him. And the...

Imagine an earthly situation where the heir-apparent to the throne meets with his closest friends on the eve of his own coronation. The new king’s friends would hardly desire that the king skip his own coronation. There is no greater benefit to the new king’s friends than that he ascends to the throne. When Jesus left this world, He was not departing in exile. He was leaving for His coronation. He was passing from humiliation to exaltation. The extraordinary benefit in this for every Christian is that he can live in the full assurance that at this very moment the...

August 25, 2015   Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Thes 2:1-8 You yourselves know, brothers and sisters,that our reception among you was not without effect.Rather, after we had suffered and been insolently treated,as you know, in Philippi,we drew courage through our Godto speak to you the Gospel of God with much struggle.Our exhortation was not from delusion or impure motives,nor did it work through deception.But as we were judged worthy by God to be entrusted with the Gospel,that is how we speak,not as trying to please men,but rather God, who judges our hearts.Nor, indeed,...

Gestures are funny things. Gestures have no intrinsic meaning, but they do have very important assigned meanings. Here in North America the simple thumbs-up gesture means “well done,” but in some other cultures it carries a meaning that is vulgar and offensive. Or just think of George W. Bush at his 2005 inauguration flashing the “hook ‘em horns” gesture of the Texas Longhorns. Italians were shocked because they use that same gesture to indicate that a man’s wife is cheating on him. The gesture is the same, but it carries a very different meaning. In many places in the world,...

When someone ask the question WHY ARE THERE SO MANY CHURCHES they usually are not interested in seeking an honest answer to the question. But rather they ask the question to go on to say (1) Christianity is divided. (2) God wants unity in His church not division (3) and their group is the Only True Christian Church. This is the case with the video above and the website WhyAreThereSoManyChurches.com that is produced by the hardline Church of Christ (CoC) organization World Video Bible School. This site seeks to examine that video and it’s exclusive claims and inferences in detail....

"... be sure your sin will find you out" (Num. 32:23). Ashley. Madison. Two words that will not be forgotten by millions of people for as long as they live. Divorce lawyers in some cities are not even answering their phones. Computer hackers are being celebrated and vindicated. Millions of men and women are in a state of panic. People are being blackmailed. Josh Dugger is a self-admitted hypocrite. And spouses and children of married couples are about to have their lives ruined. Why? Because almost 39 million people are anonymous members of the "Ashley Madison" website that allows affairs...

“‘Do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on’” (Matthew 6:25). To worry about the future is to sin against God. Someone has said, “You can’t change the past, but you can ruin a perfectly good present by worrying about the future.” Worry does ruin the present, but even more important for the believer is to recognize that worry is sin. Let’s look at why that is so. Worry means you are striking out at God. Someone might say, “Worry...

"[Love] bears all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). Love confronts sin but protects the sinner. In 1 Corinthians 13:7 Paul mentions four qualities of love that are closely related: bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things. That might sound like love is indiscriminate and accepting of anything that comes along, but "all things" in that verse is qualified by the context. Love rejects jealousy, bragging, arrogance, and so on (vv. 4-6), but it bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things that are within the parameters of God's Word. "Love bears all things" speaks of love's...

Satan worshipers launched a counter-protest against pro-lifers outside the Detriot and Ferndale, Michigan Planned Parenthood locations Saturday. Clad in black robes, members of the Satanic Temple of Detriot drenched bound women with milk, simulating water-boarding to "illustrate the theocratic agenda imposed upon female bodies." The milk symbolized breast milk, one of the protest organizers explained on Facebook. The group attached a symbol of their temple to the American flag and held up a sign that read, "America is not a theocracy. End forced motherhood."

August 24, 2015   Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle Reading 1 Rv 21:9b-14 The angel spoke to me, saying,“Come here.I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”He took me in spirit to a great, high mountainand showed me the holy city Jerusalemcoming down out of heaven from God.It gleamed with the splendor of God.Its radiance was like that of a precious stone,like jasper, clear as crystal.It had a massive, high wall,with twelve gates where twelve angels were stationedand on which names were inscribed,the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.There were three gates...

“‘Do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on’” (Matthew 6:25). God’s Word commands us not to worry. A story I once read reminded me that worry is like fog. According to the article, dense fog covering seven city blocks a hundred feet deep is composed of less than one glass of water—divided into sixty billion droplets. In the right form, a few gallons of water can cripple a large city. Similarly, the object of a person’s worry is usually...

"[Love] rejoices with the truth" (1 Cor. 13:6). Love never compromises God’s Word. Paul has just given us a list of things that love does not do: become jealous, brag, act arrogantly or unbecomingly, seek its own, become provoked, keep track of wrongs suffered, or rejoice in unrighteousness. Now he comes to the first of five things love does: "[Love] rejoices with the truth" (v. 6). The contrast in verse 6 is between love's inability to rejoice in unrighteousness and its joy when truth prevails. "Truth" refers to God's Word, which is the standard of righteousness. Paul could have said,...

Tags: jesus, liturgy, new testament, prayer, shema When Jesus Said The Shema So you’ve heard of the Shema, right? The most important prayer in Judaism? Traditionally recited twice a day, upon waking and going to sleep? Today, when we say “the Shema,” we’re talking about the verse Deuteronomy 6:4 as well as three other paragraphs (two from Deuteronomy and one from Numbers), but the prayer has been through a number of iterations. Several hundred years ago, the Shema contained the entire text of the Ten Commandments. At one point, early rabbis proposed that the Shema should contain the entirety of...

August 23, 2015   Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem,summoning their elders, their leaders,their judges, and their officers. When they stood in ranks before God,Joshua addressed all the people:“If it does not please you to serve the LORD,decide today whom you will serve,the gods your fathers served beyond the Riveror the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” But the people answered,“Far be it from us to forsake the...

“‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth’” (Matthew 6:19). You cannot pursue both God and riches. Ours is a society consumed with material things. Status, success, and importance are all too often measured by a person’s financial worth. Those with wealth flaunt it; those without wealth fake it. People often rack up huge debts in their desperate and futile pursuit of happiness through accumulating material things. Sadly, that same materialistic mind-set permeates the church. Instead of offering an alternative, that of being distinct from the world, the church joins the world in its pursuit of riches. Most tragically...

"[Love] does not rejoice in unrighteousness" (1 Cor. 13:6). Love never justifies sin. To most Christians, the idea of rejoicing over unrighteousness is repulsive because it suggests enjoying deliberate, wanton sin. We've seen sin's tragic effects on mankind and know how it offends God, so how could we ever rejoice in such a thing? But rejoicing in unrighteousness includes any attempt to justify sin in your own life or the lives of others, so it can be a very subtle thing. There are many ways to rejoice in unrighteousness. One is to exchange right for wrong. That's what the prophet...

August 22, 2015   Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reading 1 Ru 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17 Naomi had a prominent kinsman named Boaz,of the clan of her husband Elimelech.Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi,“Let me go and glean ears of grain in the fieldof anyone who will allow me that favor.”Naomi said to her, “Go, my daughter,” and she went.The field she entered to glean after the harvestershappened to be the section belonging to Boazof the clan of Elimelech. Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter!Do not go to glean in anyone else’s field;you are not...

Having taken a six-week break from social media, the internet and writing, it was with a sense of trepidation that I emerged from my cocoon. What has been going on in the world? In seeking to catch up I read over newsfeeds, papers and websites, and found there is one issue that stands out – mainly because apart from in US Christian circles, the silence has been deafening. I am talking, of course, about the Planned Parenthood videos. I am sure that most readers on Christian Today will be aware of the basics of the story – how the Center...

Like a bottle of "fruit juice cocktail" that's mostly corn syrup and water with a bit of actual fruit juice mixed in, some "Christian" religions are based only loosely on Christ and His Word. As we see all around us various man-made codes, catechisms, creeds, councils, conventions, etc., it's worth our time to consider whether our religion is based on the God's revelation in the Bible, or on man's ideas. The Jewish religion of Jesus' day was ostensibly based on the Scriptures, yet piled so high with preachers' and authors' ideas, that the Word of God was not only obscured...