In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul moves from doctrine to application, beginning in chapter four. After an exquisite detailing of our position in Christ in the first three chapters the focus shifts to how those who are in Christ are to demonstrate the reality of their new life in Him, having put off the…
FrontLine Volume 32 • Number 6 Prayer: Putting It into Practice Few topics are more important to the Christian life than prayer. At the same time, there are few areas of the Christian life where we feel as much the gap between what we ought to be and what we are. Books on prayer abound,…
According to Barna Research, half of all American pastors are 55 years old or older. Pastors 40 years old and younger constitute only 15 percent of the total number. These statistics indicate far more than the fact that the average gospel preacher is older than in past decades. They show that there is a dearth…
F. W. Boreham described the time when he tried to comfort a distressed woman in an Australian railway station. Upon leaving the train she discovered that she had lost her parasol, and it moved her to tears. He felt a compassionate urge to assist her in finding it. He inspected every carriage. He looked on…
Like wildfire, news services across the country have become infatuated with a revival that is occurring on the campus of Asbury College in Kentucky. I have been sent numerous links and articles regarding the phenomenon. So, you want to know what I think? My answer is “I don’t know.” Asbury College is a fairly…
In our four decades of marriage, we’ve been members of six different churches and visited several others. Most of the time, a change in church has been made necessary due to my husband’s job sending us to a new state. A couple of times, we left for other reasons, but we don’t take leaving a…
In my annual “read your Bible” post, I mentioned an “intense” reading schedule I’ve sometimes used. Another pastor suggested it to me and I’ve used it off and on for my personal Bible reading. You can read more about it here, but essentially it involves reading the New Testament in four weeks. When I use…
Matthew 14:22-33 The Sea of Galilee is known for its sudden life-threatening storms. In the time of Christ, those who labored on Galilee were experienced businessmen; those fishermen knew everything they needed to know to make a living on this large, fresh-water lake. As Jesus had pointed out, many of the ordinary weather changes in…
“The question was not ‘why’ but ‘what?’ God, what would You have me to do?” writes Ellen Vaughn in her excellent biography, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot. “For Betty, whether God told her to go confront Pharaoh or go to live among the Waodani, she determined to do it, regardless of the results.”1 Vaughn’s recent biography of…
There was a time when there were different clothes for different occasions. I say there ‘was a time’ because today casual is accepted as the norm almost anywhere you go. I’ve been in restaurants where the waiter was dressed very formally, but most patrons were quite informal. We live in a casual culture. But even…