Reading the Bible is amazing. You are hearing the living creator God speak to you by his Holy Spirit. But how do you get started. Read, answering these four questions. I think they are the four most important questions when it comes to reading any passage.
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It isn’t enough for a Christian to know about Jesus. The call is to follow Jesus. It is a life of discipleship. Discipleship isn’t about knowing the right answers. Though we need to know the truth. Discipleship is about knowing the truth and obeying the truth.
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In the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, his ministry pattern is laid bare. Paul and his team were there for only a few short weeks before conflict and persecution drove them away. But so deep and clear was Paul’s pattern of ministry that he can write back to them and point out what the Thessalonians experienced. In this he lays bare a ministry pattern that Christians can learn from and use to serve others.
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I’m deeply missing Xavier my son who died just over 2 years ago from a terrible sarcoma. I would love to hug him and hold him again. If I did, I’m not sure I could ever let go.
But, I cannot hug him or hold him. Death has stolen him from me, from my wife, Kathryn, from his brothers, his grandparents, his aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. But, I will hug him again because of the resurrection.
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Kind words matter more than ever. Have you heard them?
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In Queens, NYPD officers kneeled alongside demonstrators as civilians read the names of black people killed by police throughout the years. (Channel 9)
Until this year, the sure way to kill a conversation or slay a whole dinner party was to raise the topic of death. Unless, of course, it was a horrific public murder. But otherwise, even alluding to death was the social equivalent of deliberately insulting the party host. But, now, death is trending on twitter.
In anxious times we look for help. Our true help is not the government, nor our own strength and power. Our true help is our creator, God. He is our protection and the one who can protect us even in death. Is God the one you look to in anxious times?
The fear of death has mastery over us, and we are captive to it. It does more than influence us. It controls us. This is why we stockpile toilet paper, sanitiser and rice. It is the reason some of us might pull a knife and it is the reason those in the past abandoned their loved ones. The fear of death is greater than we realise.
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Our self-existence is in relationship with others. Or to put it another way, it is paradoxically with others that an individual exists. Where there is no shared life a single human life disintegrates from the inside out.
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