In Matthew 5, Jesus sermonizes the Kingdom of God in a repudiation of what the Pharisees had been teaching for centuries. Each section starts with "You have heard it said..." because what the Pharisees were teaching was their own oral law, not Scripture. At the end of chapter 5 Jesus speaks on how we are to treat our enemies. He says, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute

Father's Day celebrates our fathers, the commitment they have shown us, the sacrifices made for us, and the love and guidance given us throughout our lives. While not everyone can say they have benefited from their relationship with their earthly father, we all have the opportunity to benefit from a relationship with our Heavenly Father. The buzz word of my generation growing up was “self-esteem”— growing up and having opportunities to see ourselves in a positive light and re

One critical error we all have made is treating the Bible like the dictionary. For those of us old enough to have grown up with a hard copy of the dictionary in their house, we all know how we used it. Whenever we had a question as to the spelling or meaning of a word, we pulled it off the book shelf, found our answer, and then put it back until the next time we have a question. None of us ever picked it up and read it each day; none of us gave it much thought other than when

The Book of Joshua is one of triumph in many ways, as God’s promise to Israel of occupying the land of Canaan was fulfilled in ways that could only be accomplished with God. But there are interesting lessons underneath the surface that are applicable to us today. One comes in Joshua 5. Joshua has at this point led the Israelites across the Jordan River and into enemy territory, into Canaan, specifically, near Jericho. There, the angel of the Lord appears to him and has the fo

The tragic school shootings over the last couple weeks have devastated all of us once again. We all want this sort of evil to be defeated. While reaching out to elected leaders to voice our opinions towards government policy is a good thing, we all know that nothing moves quickly in lawmaking. So, stewing and frothing over things we cannot control, at least right now in the short term, is fruitless. So what shall we do? The Bible shows that the only way for communities to be