'Apostle Paul' Tagged Posts (Page 2)

'Apostle Paul' Tagged Posts (Page 2)

Daily Devotions: March 4, 2018

March 4, 2018                                                                                                                         John 2:13-22 … “In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.” vs. 14 According to the gospel of John, Jesus cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry and not at the end. We don’t know why John chose to put it first…he undoubtedly had his reasons…but his description matches that in the other gospels. Jesus had gone up to worship but found that…

Daily Devotions: March 3, 2018

March 3, 2018                                                                                                            1 Corinthians 1:22-25 … “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” vss. 23-34 There are some people who seem content to live in this world without ever thinking about matters of spirituality or mortality. They focus on the material and seem to believe that accumulation is the highest human…

Daily Devotions: March 2, 2018

March 2, 2018                                                                                                            1 Corinthians 1:18-21 … “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.” vs. 21 There’s no doubt that there’s more to learn these days. Our children and grandchildren bring home assignments from school that leave us baffled, and we wonder what ever happened to good old arithmetic. Of course, with the advent of Google, all that information…

Daily Devotions: March 1, 2018

March 1, 2018                                                                                                                        Psalm 19:7-14 … “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple;” vs. 7 We Christians are a silly bunch sometimes. Having fallen in love with grace as the loving word from God, we are prone to be dismissive about the law. Often we imagine that the coming of Jesus negated the law of the Lord and that in Christ we are free simply…

Daily Devotions: February 28, 2018

February 28, 2018                                                                                                     Psalm 19:1-6 … “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” vss. 3-4a Even though the psalmist likely believed that the earth was flat, his sense of God’s majesty is deep and profound. As he looked up into the heavens he realized that God was more than he could even imagine. By the light…

Daily Devotions: February 27, 2018

February 27, 2018                                                                                               Exodus 20:12-17 … “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” vs. 17 The people of God have long agreed that there are ten commandments, though most would be hard-pressed to list them in the proper order. And there’s considerable debate about which commandments should be included in the list of ten. Most folks…

Daily Devotions: February 26, 2018

February 26, 2018                                                                                                   Exodus 20:1-11 … “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work…” vss. 8-10  The commandment on the sabbath doesn’t seem as significant as some of the others. We can understand the restriction on graven images as idolatry was always a temptation for God’s people. And it seems obvious…

Daily Devotions: February 25, 2018

February 25, 2018                                                                                                     Mark 8:34-38…“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ’If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” vs. 34 It’s become quite common in these times for people to identify themselves as followers of Jesus. For some, it’s a way to disassociate themselves from some of the negativity connected with the current depictions of Christianity as a political or nationalistic movement. In their…

Daily Devotions: February 24, 2018

February 24, 2018                                                                                                     Mark 8:31-33…“He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” vs. 32 As Mark took time to write his little account of Jesus’ ministry, he was careful to let his readers know that Jesus was quite open in talking about the suffering that awaited him, but the disciples had been reluctant to listen. They had their own expectations about how the journey would transpire and they weren’t about to consider…

Daily Devotions: February 23, 2018

February 23, 2018 Romans 4:18-25 … “Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’” vs. 22 According to Genesis, Abram’s introduction to the Lord was coupled with a request that his walk with the Lord be blameless. It’s hard to understand how Abram could possibly pull that off—even if his name did get changed to Abraham. From the stories about him that follow, it’s obvious that he didn’t do what the Lord required. He was pretty much a sinner…

Daily Devotions: February 22, 2018

February 22, 2018 Romans 4:13-17… “For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham…” vs. 16 Paul was writing to a mixed audience, some were Jews and others were Gentiles, and he wanted all of them to know that God’s promise of salvation came by grace through faith,…

Daily Devotions: February 21, 2018

February 21, 2018                                                                                               Psalm 22:27-31 … “Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” vs. 30-31 There are those who consider that one day the people of the earth will have had enough of God and be done with primitive origin stories. For them, it’s a matter of maturity and once science has revealed all its secrets, humanity will have…