Church of CHRIST

A short article entitled, “To Be Happy,” has crossed my desk and reads, “Close your book of complaints and open the book of blessings. Believe that other men are quite as sincere and honest as you, and treat them with respect. Stop looking for friendship and start being friendly. Be content with such things as… Read More »

Concerning worry, the Scriptures are both clear and forthright: “Do not worry . . .” (Matthew 6:31, McCord.) Note that Jesus does not warn His followers against worrying excessively; He mandated against worrying, period. Sometime later, the inspired Paul wrote, “Don’t worry over anything whatever.” (Philippians 4:6, Phillips.) The message is inescapable: Christians are not… Read More »

No one but a fool would consider leaping a chasm in two jumps. Here is either complete commitment or total failure. The same is true of Christianity. Too many of us are like the little boy who cut off his puppy’s tail an inch at a time for fear of causing the dog undue pain… Read More »

Are you a happy person? The Psalmist describes a happy, blessed man as one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord.” (Psalms 1:1.) Jesus paints a word picture of a happy person in the beatitudes of Matthew’s fifth chapter. And the apostle Paul encourages his readers to “rejoice evermore . . . rejoice… Read More »

Those unfortunate souls who meander through life caring about nothing are at least consistently predictable. Even the tiniest seeds of indifference have power to produce a bitter harvest of stagnation and decay. Robert Hutchins, the respected American educator, once predicted, “The death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination by ambush. It… Read More »

In the year 399 B.C., a seventy-year-old Socrates stood in the court of ancient Athens to defend himself against the charges of corrupting the city’s youth and professing to a disbelief in the ancestral gods.  Almost 500 years later, the battle-scarred apostle Paul stood outside the same city and defended the God of heaven and… Read More »

According to the President of the United States: “Public opinion in this country is everything.” “The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects.” “The man with power but without conscience, could, with an eloquent tongue . . . put the whole… Read More »

Money may be scarce, and character scarcer still, but words are “a dime a dozen”; or at least so it would seem from the careless way they are tossed around these days.  Observe the following few examples of wasted redundant language:  “Born-again Christian” – what other kind has there ever been? “Local congregation” – as opposed to what? an internet… Read More »

What would you call someone living in a world made by God, basking in abundant blessings provided by God, but still, despite abundant evidence for God’s existence, denying there is a God. Would you call that person a cynic? a skeptic? The Bible uses language a bit stronger.  Psalms 14:1 reads, “The fool has said… Read More »

The Bible School teacher had just finished telling her class of third-graders the story of the Good Samaritan when she asked, “Now what have we learned from this story?”  One of the students, a rather outspoken lad, blurted out, “I have learned that when I get into trouble my neighbor ought to help me!” Here was… Read More »