Today my sons began their new school year to the resounding and encouraging voice of the President of the United Sates of America! Wow, how cool to have the President speak right to you as a kid! However, such was not the enthusiasm of many of the far, and lately ridiculous, Right. Some have said that President Obama means to indoctrinate our children; while others have feared that the President was using our kids to gain political advantage over his foes. People were protesting the President...
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The Apostle Peter lived to see a time when it became increasingly dangerous to profess one’s self a Christian. In his latter years, public opinion in the Roman empire shifted against Christians on a wide scale. Christians were held in contempt by the populace because of their convictions against the pervading pagan religion of Roman society. This caused many in that day to view Christians with suspicion and animosity; a sentiment that Emperor Nero used to his advantage in AD 64, when eleven...

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I heard such a disparaging opinion of “The Proverbs 31 Woman” the other day. It really took me by surprise, since in my experience, the ideals of the virtuous wife in that passage are usually regarded in high esteem. However, there was a woman in a group I was with who shared her utter disdain for the general trend of churches to push the ideals of Proverbs 31 onto women who could never live up to such a rigorous standard. Cynicism dripped from her words as she went on about this passage,...

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In Mark 8:15, Jesus warned His disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod!” The leaven of the Pharisees is directly described as religious hypocrisy, but what is the leaven of Herod? In the Gospels we read of a sect called the Herodians who joined forces with the Pharisees to destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6). They seem to have been a political party, named for its support of Herod’s dynasty which reined over Judea as Roman vassals. In speaking of leaven, no doubt ...

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