On this first Monday of the year, we begin at the beginning. The New Year is always a good place to start at the beginning. With its proverbial flip of the...

Toward the end of Revelation, John receives a vision of God's future plan for the faithful. Throughout most of his vision, John offers a word of encouragement to followers of Jesus...

A fellow who lived in the rural part of Middle Tennessee where my mother grew up responded in this fashion when people asked him what kind of Christian he was: "Well,...

Many people make resolutions on the first day of a new year, but what do you resolve on the first day of a new decade? (Though many herald a new decade...

There was a time in my younger days when I used to run ten-kilometer races. Never being a fast runner, I always wound up at the back of the race. In...

Several years ago another pastor in my annual conference invited me to baptize her child. This young woman had been a youth in one of the churches I had served years...

I had gone to visit Hubert at the hospital where he was awaiting the amputation of a second leg. His first amputation had taken place several years earlier. Having been a...

The church calendar refers to this day as the Feast Day of Holy Innocents. It commemorates the children who died because of Herod's fear of the birth of another king, a...

In Rembrandt’s Simeon and Anna Recognize the Lord in Jesus, Anna is by far the most physically active figure. Positioned behind the holy family and Simeon, she stands straight and thrusts...

Step by careful step, Luke shows us much in this passage. We see the poverty of a couple that offers only pigeons instead of the usual goat. In their determination to...