WCF Blog

Widening Your Heart
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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).

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Letter
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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.

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Brotherly Love
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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.

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Giving thanks
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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.

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Godliness
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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.

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Anxiety
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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.

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Courage Under Fire
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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.

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Sing!
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

Sing!

Why do we sing at our worship services? Even if we don’t have very many voices? Even if our voices aren’t great? Possibly just because it’s what we grew up with—simply a habit.

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Rules Can’t Make Us Self-Controlled
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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?

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Daily bread
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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Credit
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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Despise
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

Despise

When we use or hear the word “despise”, we generally understand that a very negative feeling is being conveyed. Dictionaries call it “contempt or a deep repugnance”, or “scorn”, or “look down on with disrespect or aversion”. A very strong word in English.

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Need
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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Loopholes
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

Loopholes

Human beings are exceedingly creative and resourceful when it comes to finding loopholes. Finding ways of evading or twisting the intent of a law or rule or contract, usually based on some technicality.

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Exalted
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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Sound Bites
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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.

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Knowledge isn’t Meant to be Academic
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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.

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I love you
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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Faith – The Root Principle
Richard Morgan Richard Morgan

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.

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Would you? Would I?
Paul Zilmer Paul Zilmer

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)

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