Articles

First Samuel 5is a difficult chapter—a crystal-clear example of divine judgment and intervention. When we study it and consider the heavy hand of God, we have to remember that we’re dealing with events that happened a long time ago, around 1100 BC, and with what’s clearly an unrepeatable incident. It’s important that we approach passages like this one in light of the rest of the Bible. Scripture interprets Scripture in such a way that where one passage may not be as accessible as another, other portions enable us to approach those difficult texts properly.

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There is an old adage that goes, “People buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like.” That is a sadly accurate summary of how the world tends to look at money. As Christians, however, we recognize that our money has a higher purpose.

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Many Christians who sit in a church on a Sunday morning can say that they have already found the answer to the question What Is the Gospel? They have understood the saving grace of God in the cross of Christ, have taken hold of Christ by faith, and now find themselves in Christ, clothed in His righteousness, adopted as children of the Father, and walking in the Spirit’s power. In other words, at a particular moment in time, they were born again.

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The end of the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom was a period when the authority and the sufficiency of Scripture were under vigorous attack. The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement faced ridicule, not from outsiders but from ministers of the church. During what became known as the Down-Grade Controversy, Charles Spurgeon recognized that God was being robbed of His glory and that men and women were being robbed of their hope. He wrote, “Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith.”¹

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At one time or another, every Christian confronts the question “What is God’s will for my life?” When it comes to the specifics, the answer will differ for each of us according to context and calling, and we must exercise wisdom as we prayerfully study God’s Word and apply it in our lives. Most Christians will never know with certainty what their next step will be—only that it must be in faith as we obey the Lord’s commands.

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Words are not trivial. As Proverbs says, “The tongue has the power of life and death” (18:21). Words hurt, and they heal; they destroy, and they restore. Leaders can move markets, nations, and peoples—toward both greatness and disaster—with their words. Mothers and fathers nurture their children—and wound them—with their words. We may never take up arms against others, but many of us do far greater damage with words than we could ever manage with a weapon. Yet the wise person, God teaches, uses words to bring life.

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In his brief letter to Titus, one of the young pastors under his care, Paul provides instruction on issues like church leadership and doctrine. In the exhortations spanning Titus 2:11–3:11, Paul describes the relationship between God’s grace and our good works. Like a cause and effect, grace, he explains, produces in us a desire to do good (2:14).

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In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul urges Timothy to “pursue” a number of qualities, one of which is eusebeia, translated “godliness.” This is a term that Paul uses frequently in the letter. (See 2:2, 3:16, 4:7, and 6:6.) It describes a state of spiritual fitness, and it is expressive of another English word that has largely fallen out of fashion: piety.

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Before He returned to the Father, Christ commissioned His church to “go … and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18). That day, the church received its commission, but it was on a later day—after Christ had ascended, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came on the gathering of disciples—that the church began its mission. Only then, under the Spirit’s power, did they at last begin to preach the Gospel to “devout men from every nation under heaven” who were gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:4–5).

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Repentance is a key doctrine of Christian faith. From John the Baptist’s wilderness cry in the Gospels (Matt. 3:2, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3) to Paul’s defense before King Agrippa (Acts 26:20) and beyond, it’s a regular topic of the New Testament’s teaching. In fact, right after His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:46–47). A call to repentance, the Lord said, is a fundamental part of Gospel proclamation.

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