Consider this

            The Biblical book of Romans is divided into sixteen chapters.    Most people only really read the first fifteen chapters.   Why?   Well, Paul spends almost the entire last chapter greeting his friends in the church.   Romans sixteen may be useful for coming up with a unique baby name or two (try “Ampliatus” for example), but beyond that there does not seem to be much there for us.             It sort of makes you wonder why it would even be included in the Bible.   In fact, it makes me wonder why Paul would write about those church members to those church members.   I mean, why bother?   They knew each other already, right?             Well, maybe not!   Maybe they had been together for a while.   Maybe they knew each other’s names and where the other person worked, but what if they really did not know each other at all?   What if they had become so familiar with one another that they stopped seeing each other as blessings?    What if they had stopped really se

            “Make every effort to live at peace with all men and to be holy” (Hebrews 12:14).             The temptation when reading a verse like this is to separate it into two parts and then to focus on the part that we like the best.   That, however, would be a huge mistake.             For example, if I focus only on the “live at peace with all men” part, then I am tempted to measure my success by avoiding conflict.   If that is my goal, then all I have to do is agree with everything that anyone else says or does.   As long as I do not contradict their thoughts, values or actions I can live at peace with just about anyone.   Who will fight with you if you simply let them do whatever they want?             The problem here though is that you do not have real peace.   All you have is a lack of aggression.   Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once pointed out that most people “prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence o

            In Genesis twelve, God made this promise to Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing… all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Verses 1-3).                 Several years later, God renewed his promise to bless Abraham and then said something that changed everything.   Abraham was told that his wife Sarah was going to have a son and that the promise would be fulfilled through him.               When Abraham heard that, he laughed and thought, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?   Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” (Genesis 17:17)    In his mind, that plan was simply ridiculous, so he suggested something more logical: “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” (Verse 18).   Do you see what he is saying?   Ishmael was one of Abraham’s other sons.   Essentially he was saying to God, “I know you will bless me, but it has to be through the

                We have all heard the expression, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”, but do you know who said it or in what context it was used?                In Acts 20, Paul meets with the leaders of the church in Ephesus.   During the course of this talk, he tells them to, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.   Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).   They had a responsibility to lead the church and they were to take that role seriously.             He ends his speech with these words from Jesus; “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (verse 35).   Now, on first glance, it looks like Paul is changing the subject, or throwing in something else to think about.   After all, he has been talking about being a leader and influencing others and suddenly he is talking about “giving”.   What happened here?   Did we miss something?                No!   Not