Having established that we are justified by faith in Christ and not by obeying the requirements of the law, Paul now teaches us in Galatians 5:13–26 how to live out this new freedom we have in Christ. It's not freedom to indulge the flesh, but rather freedom to walk by the Spirit.
Love
Advent 2024 Fourth Sunday: Love
Love is the opposite of hatred. Love is a selfless desire to do good. Hatred is a self-centered desire to do harm. The "Christmas spirit" of love can camouflage the real hatred in our hearts. But Advent reorients us to real love.
Advent 2024 First Sunday: Life
Our annual remembrance of the coming of Jesus Christ as a human baby starts today. This year the words of the apostle John dominate my ponderings. I will explore words he uses to describe Christ—Today, we start with LIFE.
God’s Truth and Love Are Inseparable
I most commonly hear truth and love treated as binary, opposites, or ends of a spectrum. Pastors speak of our tendency to choose one or the other and exhort us to find balance, to hold them in tension. But I'm not satisfied with this. I'm on a quest for clarity.
The What, Why, and How of Agape from the Apostle of Love
The apostle John is the real expert on true love. He writes about it more than any other author in the Bible. He alone records Jesus's new commandment to love one another in a new way—like Jesus loves us (John 13:34–35). In 1 John 4:7–21 alone, love (agape in Greek) is mentioned 27 times.
God Knows It All and Loves Us Anyway
The apostle John’s first letter focuses a lot on obedience and loving others. It can be a tough message. Just in case we’re condemning ourselves because we know we sometimes sin, or occasionally hate others, or love the world more than our heavenly Father, John wants to reassure us we belong to God and set our hearts at rest.
The ‘One Anothers’ in Scripture Characterize Community
There are over fifty "one another" verses in Scripture (the exact number depends on your translation). One anothering describes how those in the kingdom of God function. It characterizes community, friendship, fellowship, koinonia. I decided to do a fresh study of these exhortations in scripture. Here are my observations.
Balance and the Center of Biblical Tension
My seminary president, Robertson McQuilkin, drilled into me a profound maxim: “It seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.” More recently, this same concept was reiterated by my Bible study teacher, JoAnn Hummel: “You and others will benefit as you “hold the rope” of tension in the Scriptures.” The prophet Isaiah offers us many opportunities to put this guiding principle into practice since his writing contains much tension.
Pondered Treasures 