Church leaders were largely to blame for Mark Twain becoming hostile to the Bible and the Christian faith. As he grew up, he knew elders and deacons who owned slaves and abused them. He heard men using foul language and saw them practice dishonesty during the week after speaking piously in church on Sunday. He […]
Seasons of Life
Those who know me will agree I’m a bit strange. It’s raining today here in beautiful northern Michigan. I love rain. I love sunshine too but I also enjoy thunder and lightning, high winds and even snowdrifts and the bitter cold of deep winter. The chill of winter makes a spot by the wood stove […]
Peace in Acceptance – 1 Timothy 2:11-15
This is a poem of Amy Carmichael’s, “He said..’I will forget the dying faces, the empty places. They shall be filled again. Oh, voices moaning deep within me cease.’ But vain the word, vain, vain. Not in forgetting lieth Peace… He said..’I will crowd action upon action. The strife of faction shall stir me and […]
Coming Down Off the Mountain
We just completed a weekend Missions Conference here at Higgins Lake Baptist Church. It was one of those “mountaintop” experiences. God used three missionary families to challenge and encourage us to faithfully serve where the Lord has put us. After a group of meetings like this when you are with other Christians for several days […]
It’s the Heart – 1 Timothy 2:9-10
An ad appeared in a newspaper that read: “Farmer wants to marry woman, age 35, with tractor. Send picture of tractor.” We laugh at this but it ought to cause us to think about just what kind of traits do make a woman attractive? In a moment we’ll begin to consider what God’s Word says […]
Essential Teaching on Prayer – 1 Timothy 2:8
John R. Greening, says this about the concerns Timothy faced in the church that Paul addressed in the book of 1 Timothy that we’ve been studying in recent weeks. Photo by: Peyman (Creative Commons) “A quick survey of the first epistle to [Timothy] will reveal what [he] was up against in the Church at Ephesus: […]
The Power of Prayer – 1 Timothy 2:1-7
I just love the faith that children bring to prayer. I read about a little 8-year-old boy that came home from school with a stuffed animal he had won at the class Valentine’s party. His dad asked him that happened. “Well,” the little guy explained, “the teacher put all our names together, and then picked […]
Fight The Good Fight – 1 Timothy 1:18-20
A few weeks ago we began a study of 1 Timothy and as we approach our passage for study today we will discover, I believe, the unifying theme of this letter to Timothy from Paul. As you study a passage it is usually a good idea to look for the big idea. I think we’ll […]