Serious About Scripture

Mentoring and motivating Christ’s people to live his words

The Negotiables

I am a lover of the local church in any form I find it, provided we mean the same thing by “church.” I’ve had sixty years of ministry in all kinds of churches, internationally and here in the States. I have seen some great ones and some very sad, sickly ones—and that has little to do with size. If it is a true church, however, I’m for it and wish to see it flourish. I’ve not lost my enthusiasm for…

Fences

It had not occurred to me that the fences in view on our back porch were so much in the style of colonial America. Such fences always impressed me when visiting Williamsburg in Virginia. The very wealthy might have wrought iron or stone, but the common fence 250 years ago was four feet high and wooden, sometimes painted but often not, just like ours. There is a warmth to that, as I look out over the fences here among neighbors,…

Two More Ways to Bless Others by Reading the Bible to Them

I hope you are part of a church that includes “the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13) at its main weekly meeting. Family worship is also a common setting for reading Scripture out loud to others. In both of these settings, both the reader and the hearers are, as John wrote about the public reading of Revelation, “blessed” (Rev. 1:3). What follows are two additional ways we can experience this blessing as readers and also bless others.  First, read…

Paul and Prayer: Colossians 4:12-13

Colossians 4:12-13 “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” Epaphras was, according to the Apostle Paul, the person who started the church at Colossae. This was his hometown, situated about 100 miles…