Category: Bible

Forgive and forget.  Someone asked me if this was in the Bible. After a pause, I shouted, “I think I know what my next blog will be about!” Truth be told, I thought it was a principle found in the Bible. I mean, shouldn’t we forgive as God forgives...

God will never give us more than we can bear. I heard this one a lot – especially as a chaplain. Sometimes it was uttered in a desperate search to find comfort in the midst of overwhelming tragedy. Sometimes people use it to console others. Most believe they are...

Everything happens for a reason or so the saying goes. But in a world filled with meaningless violence and natural disasters, can this saying really be true? And is there Scriptural basis for this claim? Before we determine whether this statement is true or not, we must determine what...

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. Revelation 3:15, 16 Many interpret this in terms of passion, with God...

Judge not lest you be judged. How many Christians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Ten, one to change the light bulb and nine to judge whether he did it right. Many of you laughed, some of you winced because the simple fact is that Christians...

1 Corinthians 6:12. “’Everything is permissible for me’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’—but I will not be mastered by anything.” Paul is arguing against a popular saying in Corinth at the time that many within the church seem to have taken as gospel truth (pun...

Love covers a multitude of sins. This saying is not as well known as other sayings that I have covered in previous blogs, but it seems to come up regularly in sermons with no context and without much explanation. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I hope to give you...

Money is the root of all evil.  This saying is obviously derived from I Timothy 6:10 (“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”), but there are several flaws in it. The most obvious flaw is the missing phrase at the beginning; it is...

Spare the rod, spoil the child.  As with most popular proverbs, there are elements of truth contained within this saying, which is probably why it is often mistaken for Scripture. Some verses in the Bible have similar wording as well, further complicating the confusion. This blog will discuss two...

  Jon, A friend of mine is struggling with the question “Doesn’t God just want me to be happy?” – how would you respond to that?  Great question! This might surprise some people, but God is not solely concerned with whether we are happy or not at the present...