Though the New Testament church grew quickly, problems arose almost as fast. One is noted in Acts 6. The church took on the responsibility of feeding the widows among them. This was vital as widows had nearly zero power or ability to provide for themselves. However, certain groups of widows felt that they were not […]

The book of Acts, as a work of ancient history, is without parallel. In fact, according to commentary in the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible; “No nonhistorical work from antiquity exhibits so many correspondences with external information. Corroborating external information, in fact, may be more extensive for Acts than for any other book in the New […]

Don’t you love the way the book of John ends? “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (John 21:25).” This verse reminds us two important things. First, the gospels […]

Did you know that Jesus Himself prayed for you when He was here on earth? Just before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed for Himself, His disciples, and then for you and me. (Those of us who would eventually believe in Him in the future.) In John 17, Jesus prayed this for His followers; “My prayer is […]

The story of Jesus washing His disciple’s feet (in John 13) was meant to shock them and us. The picture of Jesus kneeling down with a basin of water and a towel washing the dust from the feet of the very man whose betrayal would, in a matter of hours, send Him to a horrific […]

“And some of them said, ‘Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying (John 11:37)?’” As people stood around Lazarus’ tomb, they were baffled. Jesus healed people every day, why didn’t He heal His dear friend? Letting him die didn’t make any sense at all. […]

When I was a kid, I bought a gorgeous Hereford calf from the farmer up the road. Her mother got an infection and was unable to nurse, so I bottle-fed her before school, after school and before bed. To her, I was “mom.” As long as I had her, this cow would come to me […]

You guys, I am such a church girl. I love church. I need church. I actually can’t manage life without a church. (My husband will attest to this. When we move and have to go through the “church shopping” phase, I nearly lose my mind. True story.) “Home” for me is wherever my church is. […]

The story of the woman caught in adultery has always baffled me, does it you? John 8 records the familiar story of a woman flung at Jesus’ feet by a group of men who were trying to trap Him and kill her. I always wonder, where was the man? Obviously, you can’t commit adultery alone. […]

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) once said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts I do understand.” John noted that at one point, some of Jesus’ disciples felt like Mark Twain. After some challenging teaching, they began to pull away from Him. “This is hard […]