“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” A bold assertion to be sure, but Henry David Thoreau may have been close to the truth in his bleak appraisal of the human condition. In this sad and painful world, joy is elusive at best, always somehow just out of reach. And oddly enough, it is often least present in the lives…

Despite the tragedy and suffering the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted, we must believe God has many wise and holy purposes for permitting the onset of this modern-day plague. Only eternity will reveal them all, but for now we trust that the sovereign Lord is at work bringing good out of that which is in itself evil. Perhaps one of God’s purposes for…

The Apostle Paul pulled no punches in his warning to the Philippians: “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh” (Philippians 3:2). What provoked Paul to employ such invective? It was the false teaching of the Judaizers, Jewish Christians who were urging Gentile believers to undergo circumcision as a means of conforming…