“Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension” (1 Timothy 2:8).
In many churches today it is common for people to lift their hands during worship. Does this verse command us to do that? What is it all about?
The subject of this passage, going back to verse 1, is prayer (probably in the assemblies of the church). “Lifting up holy hands” in verse 8 refers to the custom of lifting one’s hands in prayer, which appears to have…
“What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:5-7).
The Corinthian saints had a tendency to exalt their favorite preachers. People were saying, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” etc., as if their loyalty were to this or that evangelist instead of Christ. The…
“In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise” (Proverbs 10:19). “The fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart” (Proverbs 18:2).
I have to confess that verses such as these have often come to my mind upon encountering certain kinds of people.
What do you think of when you hear the word religion?
Does that word bring to mind cold, shallow formality? Strict rules and requirements? Man-made attempts to earn favor with God? Self-righteous hypocrisy? Maybe even corruption or oppression?
Those are the things that religion suggests to many people. Which helps explain why it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.”
Often the person who says this considers himself a follower of Jesus, but he turns up his nose at “organized religion” (meaning…
Earlier this year we finished a six-month study of the gospel of John. Along the way I noticed something striking: When you compare the words of Jesus in John’s gospel with the apostle’s own words in his three letters, you find that John, perhaps more than any other New Testament writer, talks the way Jesus talked. Several passages in John’s epistles are clear echoes of things that Jesus said—and the way he said them—in the gospel of John. A few examples:
