Articles

Proverbs is not a “churchy” book—at least not in the way many of us conceive of church. Its wisdom isn’t prim and proper and fit for afternoon tea. Rather, Proverbs calls us to the street, to everyday life, to matters that affect us all in some way. Derek Kidner has said that Proverbs puts “godliness into working clothes.”¹ It is godly wisdom for everyday living.

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Who among us could have imagined that the World Trade Center towers, those symbols of prosperity and freedom, could so quickly be reduced to rubble and dust against the blue-sky beauty of a Manhattan morning? Who would have thought that planes meant to carry families to Grandma’s house or businesspeople to their next venture could be turned into weapons of mass destruction?

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The entirety of the Bible is inspired Scripture—every book, every paragraph, every sentence, every word. But while all Scripture is equally inspired, some parts of it exceed the others in being inspiring.

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Though we use it sparingly, bereavement is a word most of us have heard—perhaps at least in the context of the bereavement leave that many workplaces grant. The word comes from the verb to reave, which means to forcibly deprive, to take captive, to plunder. And that is what happens in the experience of bereavement. In being bereaved, we are broken up, we are ravished. What we once had is lost, and we are invaded with grief.

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Too often, we regard the book of Revelation as if it were a collection of riddles—some kind of theological Rubik’s Cube that must be deciphered by making all the colors match on every side. But this shouldn’t be the case.

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It may surprise some to consider that the strongest words in the Bible concerning hell come from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself. For example, in Mark 9:48, Jesus uses imagery from Isaiah 66 to describe hell as a place full of invincible, flesh-eating worms and unquenchable fire. (That’s not exactly the most pleasant picture, is it?)

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Comfy, accommodating visions of the Christian life have been popular for some time now. Peddlers of such ideas speak as if Christ’s mission were to purchase us an oversized, fluffy armchair to lounge in until He tranquilly guides us to an even fluffier cloud in heaven. “If you become a Christian, all your difficulties will fly away,” they say. “Just have enough faith, and you will reap only blessings.”

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In some of the most important words ever written about marriage, the apostle Paul roots the marital union in God’s creation design:

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Have you ever noticed that mainstream talk of religion rarely pays attention to God’s activity in the world? When the media does have something to say about God, it’s usually about the “search for God,” as if a great multitude is out there looking all over the place for Him, and they just can’t find Him. This is the story of religion: that man is just trying to find God, wherever He is.

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Jesus never promised His people a pain-free life. In a fallen world, we all experience physical breakdown and decay as we await “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). Sometimes, though, as James 5:13–18 describes, that future redemption breaks into the present, and God graciously heals what ails us.

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