Senator Responds to Obama Citizenship Issue
May 28
Two weeks ago, I challenged the Congressmen and Senators of our Commonwealth of Kentucky, asking each elected official to speak out concerning President Obama’s ongoing “Citizenship Eligibility” questions.
The pragmatic life in Christ demands daily living…
Feb 25
"And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come." (Luke 19:13) This "parable of the pounds" indicated to His disciples that they should not wait idly for the second coming of Christ, thinking "that the kingdom of God should immediately appear" (Luke 19:11), but that they should stay busy, using whatever abilities and opportunities they had in the Lord's service until His return. The word "occupy" is an unusual word, the Greek pragmatenomai, from which we derive our modern word "pragmatic," meaning "practical," and it only occurs this one time in the New Testament. There is another related word, however, also occurring only one time, in 2 Timothy 2:4. "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." Here the word "affairs" is the Greek pragmateia, and Paul is cautioning those who would be "good soldiers of Jesus Christ" against becoming involved in the pragmatic affairs of civilian or business life, if they would really be pleasing to their commanding officer.
Walk by faith
Feb 25
Although our text for today appears in parentheses in the King James Bible, it is a most important concept in Scripture and is the summary of an extensive passage which precedes it. Beginning with II Corinthians 4:8, Paul continually contrasts the seen and the unseen, finishing up with the admonition to "walk by faith." "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (vv.8-9). Though we have trials on the outside, through faith we have inward triumph. "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus . . . that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (vv.10-11). Even though "death worketh in us," that same persecution results in "life in you" (v.12). Through faith we know "that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus" (v.14).
Why do "Christians" act and talk so… worldly?
Feb 25
In the Book of Ephesians are included several guidelines for the Christian's speech--how we should talk and what we should talk about. These are not easy rules to follow, but are necessary if we would please our Savior and be effective in our Christian lives and witness. As our text indicates, vulgar talk, idle chatter, and coarse jesting should "not be once named among you, as becometh saints" (5:3). "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (4:29). The same applies to bitter, angry, malicious speech. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice" (4:31). And certainly our communications should be true and trustworthy. "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor" (4:25).
Fools
Feb 25
"Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not He thy father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee, and established thee?" (Deuteronomy 32:6). fool This rebuke was by Moses, as he warned the people of God just before their entrance into the Promised Land. It contains the first use of the Hebrew nabal (translated "fool" or "foolish") in the Bible. Here it is applied to God's chosen people after they had been redeemed out of Egyptian slavery by God. This implies that the most foolish of all people are those who have known about God and His great salvation and yet have turned away from His Word. Paul writes in similar scathing terms of those who had known of God's great deliverance of their fathers from the evil world before the Flood, and yet then abandoned Him for idolatry. "When they knew God, . . . their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:21-22).
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