Posts with the category “acts”

In today’s reading, we look at the last chapter of Acts, chapter 28. We are going to discover real friends today—forty-three-mile friends. When talking about friendship, John Churton Collins said, “In...  Read More

Today, we’ll take a boat ride on some rough waters in Acts 27. This boat has 276 on board, most of them prisoners. The apostle Paul is below deck in shackles and on his way to Rome. At one point the m...  Read More

In today’s reading, the apostle Paul is about to make his defense before king Agrippa before leaving for Rome. It is so powerful that at the end of his speech, the king says to Paul, “In a short time ...  Read More

There are two ways to view yourself—from a photo or in a mirror. Photos are how we wished we looked. Mirrors are how we really look. One is fantasy, the other reality. We can fix our hair and our make...  Read More

Recently I read a quote about being good stewards of our time and made me sit back and really think about what I do with the time God has given me: Each new day brings us 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,40...  Read More

My father used to use a phrase when we were about to get spanked when we were kids—The bag is getting full. It meant that a bunch of things we did were adding up, and he couldn’t take anymore. Have yo...  Read More

The apostle Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. That was AD 34. It was an amazing story of Paul encountering the resurrected Jesus. Our chapter today is Acts 22, and we find here, thirte...  Read More

In order to talk about Acts 21 today, I have to tell you a story with a big gap. Technology has made the world a neighborhood. Because of technology, people get famous real fast today. If you have a s...  Read More

Nodding off. We have all done it. In church, a board meeting, a lecture, a conference, while someone is talking, in school on all levels. I have nodded off while praying and while others are praying. ...  Read More

In Acts 18 we were introduced to the first pastor of the Church of Ephesus, Apollos. This pastor had everything going on: he was eloquent, mighty in the Scriptures, fervent in spirit, committed to Bib...  Read More

I had a discussion with a friend who believed the gifts of the Spirit were only for the first century and not for today, that the gifts ceased. That is called “cessation” theology. He keyed in on one ...  Read More

Quaker minister and advocate of religious freedom, who also founded Pennsylvania, wrote about the dangers of jealousy: Jealousy is a kind of civil war in the soul, where judgment and imagination are a...  Read More

Welcome to one of the most important New Testament chapters, Acts 16. This chapter is the reason we meet for church, and it all started with God saying “no” to the apostle Paul. Let me tell you that m...  Read More

I’ll always be thankful for my friend and mentor, Dr. R. T. Kendall, who during a critical time in my life quoted these words from an unknown source: “Always remember that the best of men are still me...  Read More

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” Lewis was saying that ...  Read More

In her children’s novel, The Candymakers, Wendy Mass wrote, “If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.” Well, in today’s reading we see that the butterfly is about to come out, because a cha...  Read More

Today we come to a challenging passage of Scripture. We are about to see two men in prison, yet those same men’s lives have a different outcome. And it seems there is something that happened that chan...  Read More

In today’s reading we see a word that we use all the time but it’s used for the first time in the entire Bible. In fact, the word is used only three times in the entire New Testament. It is the word C...  Read More

I’m excited about today’s chapter. Acts 10 is one of my favorite chapters in the New Testament. It gives the thirty-thousand-foot view of why we pray. And it does this by telling a story of two separa...  Read More

Today we read about the incredible conversion story of the greatest Christian who ever lived, the apostle Paul. We find his story in Acts 9. Before his conversion, Paul was murdering and persecuting y...  Read More

All of us, as children, heard the warning about playing with fire. The combination of youth and fire can be destructive. This is true both naturally and spiritually. In today’s reading, we learn about...  Read More

One of my favorite books by C. S. Lewis is called God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. In it, he includes a chapter called “Cross Examination,” which is a question and answer time with Prof...  Read More

God sees beyond anything we can ever see. That’s why the Bible is quick to point out to us in Isaiah 55:8 that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways. That’s important...  Read More

Ananias and Sapphira are well known in church history. For those unfamiliar with their catastrophic ending, listen closely as we discuss Acts 5. They are a couple who sold some real estate, brought a ...  Read More

Today’s reading in Acts 4 is connected to a miracle story in Acts 3. In Acts 3, Peter and John prayed for a man they had seen every day at the temple, but this time with the fresh power from the Holy ...  Read More

When a big event is over and life starts up again, how do we cope? How does that look? Or how do we look? After an inspiring Sunday church service, Monday will be there. Monday is always coming. There...  Read More

The church was entering a time that would prove to be the most difficult to be a Christian. Believers would die or be persecuted for following Jesus. The persecution started in the first century and c...  Read More

Dr. R.T. Kendall recalls words his mother told him once about an old saint who had great influence on his mother’s life—and consequently on his. She said, “I have served the Lord for so long now that ...  Read More