WCF Blog
Widening Your Heart
The apostle Paul was continually trying to get the Corinthian ecclesia to mature spiritually. In his second epistle to them, he lists several of the ways he had been an example to them, including by showing them “genuine love” (2 Cor. 6:6) and concluding by saying “we have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open” (v.11).
Letter
I pray that the peace and grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus rest upon you. I thought I would write, just to let you know that you’re in my prayers. We all know that the world around us is, well it’s just full of evil, and it can affect us. It can draw us away. We know that our own hearts are a problem too. I hope you are praying for me as I am for all of you.
Brotherly Love
We Christadelphians are fond of calling each other “brother” and “sister” – we are, after all, brethren in Christ. But I fear that sometimes it can be used more as an official title than anything else. In correspondence, like when someone is asking me to speak at their ecclesia, I will be addressed as “Brother Richard.” However, the one and only time the term is used for someone in the New Testament is in Acts 9 where Ananias calls Saul of Tarsus “Brother Saul” before he was baptized.
Giving thanks
As I write this, we’re about a week away from celebrating Thanksgiving Day in the US, where I live. Last month, Canada had their Thanksgiving Day. Doing some looking around, I was a little surprised to find that quite a few countries have something similar. A number of them have a formally designated day, and others just have a cultural tradition of pausing to be thankful. In all of them, the day (or three days in China, or four days in India, or a week in Israel) is held at harvest time.
Godliness
Another way of looking at the list of attributes in 2 Pet. 1:5-7 is under the headings of faith, hope, and love. The first two attributes are about faith and aspiring to be like God because of that faith (virtue), self-control and steadfastness are about hope through the trials of life, and the last two are to do with love.
Anxiety
You don’t need me to tell you there’s a lot of anxiety in the world. Threats and stresses of all kinds abound. It’s uneven, of course. Some individuals, families, communities feel like they are doing all right; they aren’t particularly anxious about anything. For other individuals, families, communities, the word anxiety is too weak.
Courage Under Fire
In 2 Pet. 1:6, the word Peter uses for steadfastness, hypomone, has been described as one of the noblest of all New Testament words. It has the idea of courage or steadfast endurance under trial.
Rules Can’t Make Us Self-Controlled
It’s not easy dealing with the problem of sin in our lives. Paul puts it well in Romans 7 where he describes the human experience – “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (v19). We can all relate to that and all of us want to find the solution to the problem; how can I overcome sin?
Daily bread
I’m sure the title made you immediately think of the Lord’s prayer. In fact, that phrase only occurs twice in scripture – in the two versions of the Lord’s prayer. “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11) “Give us each day our daily bread.” (Luke 11:13)
Credit
Who gets the credit? Solomon makes this point in multiple places:
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (Psalm 127:1)
The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD. (Proverbs 21:31; 19:21 is similar)
The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
Need
We’re all familiar with the story: Martha is feeling overwhelmed and is fretting over getting a meal ready for Jesus and his disciples. Her sister Mary is sitting listening to the Teacher, not helping out. Martha vents her frustration, but Jesus gently rebukes her for being so anxious about many things. Then he says, “Only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)
Exalted
How long has it been since you stopped to marvel at this? But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-6)
Sound Bites
We live in an era of very short attention spans. At least that’s true in North America where I live. In-depth explanation of anything is unlikely to be read or listened to. If the message can’t be reduced to a sound bite, little attention will be paid to it by many.
Knowledge isn’t Meant to be Academic
Why does Peter’s list begin with faith, move to virtue, and only then come to knowledge? Surely knowledge should come first – we need to know what we believe in rather than having a blind faith.
I love you
The “three little words” that mean so much: “I love you”. Interestingly, they don’t occur all that often in the Bible—even though it plainly states that “God is love,” and the two great commandments to us are to love. (1 John 4:8, 16; Matthew 22:36-39)
Faith – The Root Principle
Why is faith the first attribute in Peter’s list in 2 Pet. 1:5-7? We know that faith is what God looks for in his children as he demonstrated in the life of Abraham. Faith is why God justifies us.
Would you? Would I?
A study group I’m part of recently looked at Acts chapter 12. The incident that opens the chapter is the murder of the apostle James by Herod. This was part of a broad wave of persecution: “About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword.” (Acts 12:1-2)