What is good preaching? Should it be the goal of the preacher to build numbers by entertainment? Should one’s success in preaching be measured by the numbers on the board at each service, or is there a different standard that we must use? Can one serve as an evangelist for a small congregation and still be called a good preacher? There are some groups in our culture that should not be consulted to determine what good preaching is. Our society does not define what good preaching is. The church does not define what good preaching is. Simply stated, the Bible determines what is good preaching. What does the Bible state about its proclamation to members of the body and to the lost? Biblical preaching reveals God’s power to save lost humankind. Paul understood that the proclamation of the Gospel contained within it the ability to save lost human beings. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (NKJV). The good news will propel the lost to Jesus if they respond to it on divine terms. Biblical preaching reveals the Truth to people – even when it is not popular. The apostle Paul was not popular with some of the brethren in the Roman province of Galatia, because he stood against teachers who wanted to combine elements of the Old Testament Law with the Law of

Much of what is seen in today’s world underscores the very problem that existed among the Israelites who lived during Old Testament times. Namely, they did not revere God in the manner that He wanted them to in His covenant relationship with them. If one does not respect God, He will not be honored and obeyed in an acceptable manner. Exodus 20:3-4 says, “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (NKJV). This was one of the problems that Isaiah noted in his opening monologue. He penned: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me; The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master’s crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider.’ Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward. Israel’s backsliding was continual regarding its relationship with Jehovah. In these passages, some comparisons are made between Israel and God that need consideration. First, Israelites were pictured as rebellious children. One of the most painful situations that a person can endure is the rebellion of

Recent studies indicate that Christians will be in a minority in the United States by the year 2070. There is already evidence that Christians forty years old and younger are in a minority in our nation. A recent paper reveals the following. The generation of millennials, which includes most Americans under 40, is the first one in which Christians are a minority. By the year 2070 as few as one-third of all Americans could be Christians according Pew Research Center projections. “Nones” – people without an allegiance to a religious faith, could be as many as 52 percent. (Cook) These statistics are alarming for assorted reasons. Sadly, a nation founded upon Christian values will no longer be Christian in its character and composition. If Christianity becomes a minority demographic, one wonders how long Christian liberties will continue – namely opposition to certain moral wrongs that have been embraced by United States culture. If Christians become a minority in our nation, it will be no one’s fault but our own. For far too long, we have ignored the clarion call to be about the Master’s business in doing personal evangelism. Mark 16:15 says, “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’” (NKJV). Evangelism is the primary work in which the church should be involved, but the behavior of some would lead church members to believe it is on the fringes of what Christianity is about. Nothing could be further from the truth!

In an age of pluralism and multiculturalism, emphasis is placed upon many different ideas about God, the church, worship and other details of religion. It seems that any person’s view is valid even if it does not mesh with Scripture. Finding God’s direction is important in an age when anything bearing the title “church” is deemed acceptable regardless of its doctrinal stands. While diversity might be the order of the day, unity is Christ’s desire for all who would be His followers. John 17:20-21 says, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (NKJV). In accordance with the prayer that Jesus uttered in John 17, it is apparent that Jesus wants all His disciples to be unified. This being the case, the Bible teaches that division in the church is sinful. This was a problem that Paul addressed in the church at Corinth. First Corinthians 1:10 reads, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” In the first part of this book, it is evident that they were divided

Over the last few months, a gentleman has been calling the church offices to make comments and ask questions about the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. Our dialogue has been cordial, and it seems that the gentleman asking the questions is taking my comments on the matter seriously. At the invitation of a coworker some years ago, he attended a denomination that had a healing meeting. To his surprise, he came forward complaining of back pain, and he left the meeting with improved function and less pain in his back. I have no doubt that his back was better, but I highly doubt that it was done through some miraculous powers held by the one doing the healing meeting. When confronted with this conclusion, some questions arose in our discussions that he could not answer. If there are people in our age who can perform true biblical miracles, why are they not stationed at the various hospitals and critical care clinics through the world? After all, they could heal a person with no residuals and charge absolutely no money for their efforts. A follow up question might be, “If we have individuals in our time who can perform true biblical miracles, why are they not frequenting funeral homes and crematoriums to raise people from the dead?” People are quick to emphasize the positive aspects of the miraculous abilities of the Holy Spirit but not the negative ones. There is an example of Paul employing a miracle upon someone because

Our family purchases bulk meat from Sam’s Club on a regular basis. Typically, this consists of chuck roasts and hamburger meat. With beef being more expensive, we tend to save money when we buy it in volume. We purchase hamburger meat with the intention of either eating it within a short amount of time or with the idea of freezing it for future use. To this end, we always label and date what we freeze. Until a year ago, I would always label the hamburger meat packages as “Hamburger” and include the date on the small strip of writing surface that is supplied on each bag. When we freeze meat, I tend to get in a hurry. I want to place it in the bag, label it and put it in the freezer. So, to save time, I have started labeling the hamburger meat as “coon.” Our family joked about this the other day. If my wife and I happened to pass at the same time and someone came in our house to clean out our freezers, they would think, “They sure had a lot of frozen coons to eat.” To be honest, I just got tired of writing “hamburger” on multiple packages of meat. Four letters versus nine might save a few seconds and cause less of a strain on my wrist. Contrariwise, it might create confusion and potentially horror in the eyes of those who see us defrost a plastic bag labeled “coon” in preparation for a shared

Every parent has had to deal with at least one child who has tried the limits of parental authority. Hopefully, parents step up and let their children know that the parents rather than the children control the home. This is biblical, and God expects parental leadership of children. Ephesians 6:1-3 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise: ‘That it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth’” (NKJV). Sadly, there are homes where there is neither discipline nor boundaries for a child’s behavior. The rearing of a child is the responsibility of the parents. Some people in our society have relinquished these responsibilities to others. Instead of children being raised by godly parents, they are being raised by a society that is headed into spiritual destruction. Why is it so important that children be trained to obey their parents? Consider the following several reasons. Children should be trained to obey their parents because it teaches respect for authority and the need for obedience. A person needs to understand the need for authority and its proper role in society. If parents allow their children to walk all over them, children will assume that other authorities will respond in the same manner. Children grown into adults find out very quickly that this is not the case. Children should be trained to obey their parents because it teaches a child to revere his

When I worked on the summer staff at Short Mountain Bible Camp, I became very familiar with laying stone. I had done very minor masonry work helping my father to lay cinder blocks in various types of foundations, but stonework was a different type of animal in nature. Much of the stonework that one sees at the camp was done by various individuals, but I had a hand in laying and helping with much of what was done. In many respects, there is an art to laying stone. It is almost like working a giant puzzle, putting the stones in place to make some beautiful creation. In doing this work, I obtained a great education that was vocational in nature, and I learned a few spiritual truths along the way. Stones appear in various places throughout God’s Word. Sometimes, they were used to establish memorials for the people (Joshua 4). At times, they were used to build altars for offering sacrifice to God (Joshua 8:31). Sometimes, stones were used for the construction of walls (Nehemiah 4:3), temples (1 Kings 6:7) or other structures. Oftentimes, the idea of a “stone” was used symbolically to refer to Christ and the importance of His work. For a moment, the Bible student might consider the importance of Christ in God’s plan for the redemption of lost humankind. Christ Is a Precious Cornerstone Prophecy reveals the preeminence of Christ in God’s plan to save humanity. Isaiah 28:16 reads, “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold,

In the mid 1800’s, Hans Gustafson, a well-known glass blower from Germany, became alarmed at the number of homes that were being destroyed by fires during the Christmas season. In an age prior to artificial trees, people used live trees that were cut down and placed in homes for Christmas decorations. These trees were adorned with candles to make them light up in the late evening and nighttime hours. As a result of the tree continually drying, the trees would sometimes catch fire and destroy entire houses. Gustafson sought to provide a remedy for this serious problem. He determined that glass could be blown into globes and placed on trees as decorations. The issue he had to address was the weight of the glass globes that he created. Gustafson created a process whereby the globes could be blown and designed in such a way that the glass was extremely thin and lightweight, making it easier to hang on a Christmas tree. Today, an original Gustafson hand-blown ornament is worth millions of dollars and is much sought by collectors. At this point, the reader needs to know that the previous two paragraphs were entirely made up. The words were fabricated to make a point about research and taking someone’s word for fact without any investigation. If I had not revealed the falsity of the first two paragraphs, some might have shared this information with others and claimed it to be true based on simply trusting the writer. To be fair, I make every

Humankind is constantly faced with choices that may take it further from serving God or bring it closer to Him. That having been said, we must determine how we will function in life. We can operate on our own whims or live according to God’s will for our lives. Just recently (2021), the Christian Chronicle published an article regarding the church’s response to homosexuality. For just a moment, consider what was revealed in the article. The article featured a woman named Sally Gary who shared her views regarding her lifestyle choice. The article states: Fifteen years ago, Sally Gary started a national ministry called CenterPeace. The goal, as Gary shared at events and seminars across the U.S., was to help Churches of Christ show love to the LGBTQ community. Gary, who grew up in the Tenth and Broad Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, Texas, detailed her personal journey in her 2013 memoir Loves God, Likes Girls. For most of her life, the Abilene Christian University graduate did not challenge traditional Christian beliefs on marriage. “I just told my story of how hard it is to grow up in church, wanting to be faithful, when nobody would talk about this difference in sexuality,” she said. But last fall, Gary, 59, revealed that her understanding of the Bible had changed. During a virtual CenterPeace conference hosted by the Highland Oaks Church of Christ, Gary’s home congregation in Dallas, she announced that she had moved to a fully affirming position in support of same-sex marriage.

There is a passage in Genesis that many people have wondered about down through the centuries. While some speculation remains, there are some powerful spiritual truths that can be taken away from the account that Moses offered regarding Jacob’s wrestling match with the Lord. Genesis 32:24-28 reads: Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (NKJV) As one studies these passages, there is some question about whether the one Jacob wrestled with was God or an angel. Many scholars are divided about the identity of the one grappling with Jacob. Suffice it to say that this was a being of divine nature and of great strength. Whether directly or indirectly, Jacob wrestled with God. It seems that the one grappling with Jacob had enough of the antics of the patriarch and moved Jacob’s hip out of joint. It appears that Jacob was a scrapper because he did not let

In Genesis 3:9, God asked the curious question, “Where are you?” The context of the question appears in Genesis 3:7-9, which says: Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” (NKJV) Have you ever wondered why God asked this question? Were Adam and Eve able to hide from an omniscient God? Would it be possible for one to win a game of hide and seek with God as a player? The student of God’s Word might ponder the implications of this question. The question “Where are you?” required an admission of what they had done. Genesis 3:10 says, “So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’” Prior to this they had no reason to be afraid of God’s presence. It seems that man and God enjoyed full fellowship with one another prior to Genesis 3. Furthermore, Adam and Eve had no prior understanding of what nakedness entailed. Hiding meant they knew what transgressing God’s commandment meant (Proverbs 28:1). The question “Where are you?” forced Adam and

Just recently we hosted my father-in-law for a brief stay. He was a Viet Nam veteran, and as we ate supper, I asked him to quote his military serial number. He quoted it without any hesitation. Before asking this question, I knew he would be able to quote it. I knew this because my father could do the very same thing. He was a WWII veteran, and he could quote his military serial number up until a week or so before his death. My father told me that each service member was to provide only his name, rank and serial number if captured by the enemy. This was very important for the one captured, since it helped the family of the one taken POW to know that its family member was still alive. Moreover, the treatment of POW’s pivoted on the U.S. government’s knowledge of their survival. That is, if people do not know you are alive, you can be tortured, brutalized, propagandized and murdered by those holding you as a prisoner of war, and do so without any real consequences. Until the release of Douglas Hegdahl, many of those held POW in the “Hanoi Hilton” were unknown. This refusal to let the United States know that some of their military servicemen were being held allowed the North Vietnamese to brutalize American Soldiers and torture them for information. Hegdahl was viewed as the “incredibly stupid one” by his North Vietnamese captors. This being the case, he was given liberties around

The Bible contains many valuable lessons for its readers. In addition to providing a pathway that leads to eternal life, it contains information about successfully raising children. Sometimes the most powerful examples are negative ones, and the book of 1 Samuel contains a lesson regarding Eli and his unwillingness to chasten his wicked sons. Eli was the one who instructed Samuel to be a servant of the tabernacle and receive instructions from God. While God’s Word generally portrays Eli in a positive manner, it treats Eli’s sons differently. First Samuel 3:12-13 says, “In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them” (NKJV). Eli was culpable in the behaviors of his children because as the text says, “He did not restrain them.” That is, he never rebuked them for their lewd behavior. Every parent would do well to take note of how Eli failed in raising his sons. Eli was unwilling to correct his sons because he honored them more than he did God. First Samuel 2:29 says, “Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?” This is a powerful lesson

Most children and adults who have attended Bible school have heard the story of David and Goliath. It seems incredible that a keeper of sheep would be able to slay a nine-foot-tall battle-hardened warrior, but that is exactly what happened according to the biblical account. With the help of God, David was able to overcome an enemy who had caused the armies of Israel to remain frightfully away from the field of battle. For a moment, one might consider the account of David and Goliath and make application to the spiritual warfare that we face on a regular basis. As enemies go, Goliath was in total, vocal rebellion to the army of Saul. Goliath’s impressive stature and words of disdain appear in 1 Samuel 17:4-10. These verses say: And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him. Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine,