As we approach this Christmas season--indeed, as we live any day in any year--are there guidelines, principles, or maxims from God to direct our shopping and to guide our giving? Indeed there are, including a healthful cluster of instructions found in 1 Timothy 6:17-19. We might have overlooked them, because they are directed to "those who are rich" and we assumed that meant someone else. However, we need to know that the rich person in Timothy's world, and in most of the world ever since, is any person who is wearing clothes and who owns other clothes they are not wearing. It is … [Read more...]
TURKEYS, THANKS, AND TYPHOONS
As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States this year, the holiday is a good time to remember that thanks and giving properly go together. For God's gracious gifts to us, we give thanks. The expression "say grace" means giving thanks. Because we are thankful, we give to others in need. The circle is completed when those to whom we give, themselves give thanks to God. This year we enjoy our Thanksgiving against a world background that includes horrific destruction in the Philippines, resulting in incalculable human suffering and loss. I invite you to join me in asking God … [Read more...]
FOLLOW ME (2)
There is a time to analyze, to study, to reflect. There is also a time to respond, to move, to act. Mark's Gospel is intended for the second occasion. It is 65-67 A.D. Nero is Emperor in Rome. He has just beheaded Paul and crucified Peter upside down. Now he is unleashing a wave of lethal persecution against Jesus' followers in the imperial capital. Some he ties to stakes, drenches in oil and burns as human torches. Others he dresses in animal skins and exposes to killer beasts. Others he crucifies. Jesus' followers remember the master's challenge: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him … [Read more...]
FOLLOW ME (1)
Most likely, the earliest Gospel was written by John Mark of Jerusalem, helper to both Peter and Paul. The time was probably A.D. 65-67 and the purpose was to inspire believers in Rome against whom Emperor Nero had unleashed a wave of horrific persecution after having executed the two apostles mentioned above (see Acts 12:12; 2 Tim. 4:11; 1 Pet. 5:13). Mark's is the only canonical Gospel with a title: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1). Early church tradition says that Mark wrote what Peter preached. Peter himself hints at plans for something like that (2 … [Read more...]
GIFTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING
That's what you give loved ones when you give books by Edward Fudge. Choose from the following (see pictures and descriptions at www.EdwardFudge.com/written ). GracEmail: Daily Answers to Life's Big Questions (HillCrest Publications) The Great Rescue: The Story of God's Amazing Grace (New Leaf Books) The Sound of His Voice: Discovering the Secrets of God's Guidance (New Leaf) Two Views of Hell, co-authored with Robert Peterson (InterVarsity Press) The Fire That Consumes (Paternoster Press edition). To order using major credit card for shipment anywhere, call toll-free (in U.S.) … [Read more...]
STAYING ON COURSE
Captain Francesco Schettino was more than two miles off course when the 114,500-ton Costa Concordia hit a reef this January 2012. The impact sent more than 4,000 passengers on the luxury cruise ship into a panic. It sent a still-unknown number of them to their cold and lonely deaths. There is a reason for rules. In a world filled with hazards and threats, they define the approved course. They show the way that is safe. They mark the path we can trust. Our confused society has given rules a bad rap. Torah, the Hebrew word for "law," means "instruction"--always given, by the way, for the … [Read more...]
LIFE NOW AND FOREVER
This final week of 2004 has seen what is perhaps the largest natural disaster in the world's history, following an earthquake under the Indian Ocean more than 740 miles long and having the force of a million atomic bombs. The quake, which jolted the earth's rotation, spawned monster waves called tsunamis which swept across the Indian Ocean, killing (says the Associated Press) more than 44,000 people in eleven countries from Thailand to Somalia. Human life is fragile and precious, in the big picture and in our individual cases. Immortality is Christ's accomplishment and the Christian's hope. … [Read more...]
GOD’S ‘POEMS’ (2)
April/May 1997 -- Yesterday we noted Paul's use of the Greek word poema (from which we get "poem") to describe God's workmanship in Creation (Rom. 1:20) and in his New Creation in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10). I described the divine handiwork in Creation, which we experienced recently in California. It aawed us into silence and then elicited outbursts of adoration. God's "poem" in his New Creation awed us as well these past eight days. For four days at Pepperdine, we joined an estimated 5,000 believers who packed the Fieldhouse twice each day to worship God in song and to enjoy soul-stirring … [Read more...]