The Son of Man Stands to Welcome Stephen Into Heaven Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin. His testimony becomes a sermon, which smartly recaps the story arc of the Old Testament, starting with father Abraham and spilling over into the New Testament, ending with a sacrificial death of Jesus. Though I would never suggest someone skip […]
Discover the Origin of Having a Local Place of Worship Another interesting word that occurs only in the New Testament is synagogues. Appearing sixty-six times, it’s in all four gospels, a lot in the book of Acts, and twice in Revelation. That’s it. Notably the word synagogue does not appear in the Old Testament. Where […]
I remember, years ago, I used to like woodpeckers, admiring their colorful beauty and stately appearance, being amazed at their peculiar characteristic of using their beak as a drilling tool to find food or make a shelter. However, when I learned that woodpeckers had taken an interest in my neighbor’s house, I immediately checked mine. […]
There’s a Mandarin service followed by one in English;. We attend both. The worship team leads us. The words to the song are displayed in Mandarin and have the English translation underneath. They sing and I listen to voices of a different tongue. God’s presence engulfs me. When others raise their hands, I wonder if […]
Discover How One Person Can Make a Difference In the book of Ezekiel, God said he looked for one person who could make a difference. One person who could build up the wall and stand in the gap for his people. But God could find no one. What if he had found someone? Instead of […]
Disunity Today Hurts the Cause of Jesus In our consideration of words that appear only in the New Testament, we come across Pharisees and Sadducees. Two related words are Zealot and Nazarene, along with Essene. Pharisees Appearing ninety-nine times in the New Testament, the Pharisees receive the most attention. They were a righteous group of […]
I have had a lifelong affection with words. An avid reader of fiction as a child and teenager gave way to becoming a student of nonfiction as an adult. Along with that goes forty years of random writing experience and two decades as a magazine publisher. It should come as little surprise then, that I […]
Good for Children of Ages I’m quite familiar with the NIV (New International Version) Bible. The NIV is the version I use most for Bible reading, studying, and research. And it’s the version I usually quote in my books. But what about the NIrV? Though I’ve heard about the NIrV (New International Reader’s Version), I […]
We almost skip this church since efforts to contact them were unsuccessful. It took a Saturday evening drive to confirm they’re viable and learn their service time. On Sunday a small crowd gathers, mostly older. The service is traditional, but in an informal way. At times it seems evangelical and other times mainline, with periodic […]
There are a number of sermons (teachings, messages, and proclamations) found in the book of Acts. While the definition of what constitutes a sermon and the precise number of them may be open for debate, I put the number at eleven. There are three from Peter, one from Stephen, and seven from Paul: In other […]