Tag Archive

Sometimes when you’re reading through the New Testament, you can forget that the characters you are reading about are real people. It’s easy to forget that Paul was a real man—flesh and blood. At the …

Religious wars are the strangest wars of all. You can halfway understand nations going to war over boundaries, oil, or economics. At least when you are fighting over money, there is something on the table …

It is easy, when you read the New Testament, to lose track of what the argument is about. (And there was an argument going on.) It was an argument for the heart and soul of …

Most Christian churches at least make a stab at imitating the churches of the New Testament, but no one really makes it. That’s not very surprising, given the change in culture and technology—especially in the …

Being a Christian evangelist in the early years was a real adventure. By the early years, I mean, the first 100 years of Christianity. It was a dangerous and violent time in many ways, and …

It is astonishing, when you think about it, how much hatred can be generated by religious beliefs. From the earliest times, Jews persecuted Christians; and when Christians came to power, they persecuted Jews. It is …

When you read the New Testament, you really want to see a group of people united in purpose, thoroughly converted, working together for the greater purpose of converting the world to Christ. It is a …

Imagine that you attend a small church of, say, 50 people. You have been meeting together for quite a long time. You have a common set of beliefs and practices. You get along well together. …

The very first Christian missionaries in all history were a couple of men named Saul and Barnabas. (We know Saul better as the Apostle Paul.) They had no pattern to go by, no methodology, no …

The greatest missionary church in history was established by men whose names we do not even know. No, it wasn’t Jerusalem, in spite of everything that happened there. We know that every missionary effort ever …

I would not like to suggest the apostles of Jesus were stubborn or blockheaded, because that would not be fair. The transition they were having to make was no simple matter. It is easy from …

You have to wonder about a man like Saul of Tarsus. Here’s a man that we will come to know as the apostle Paul—probably the strongest intellectual figure in the history of Christianity, the man …

There is a great divide between Christianity and Judaism. And it goes back a lot further than most people realize. It goes back way beyond Paul, and way beyond the early days of the church. …

I think it is fair to say that God used the power of the Holy Spirit to jump start the early Christian church. They started with 120 members, then baptized 3,000 people in one day. …

I remember my first experience with power. It was behind the wheel of a 1948 Chevrolet. Granted, by today’s standards, that is not a lot of power, but it was power to me. If I …

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at …

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled …