The Valley of tears Posted by appolus on July 5, 2023 Hos 2:15 And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the…
Category: Health
Stabbed by Joy: The Longings That Led Me to Christ
She allured men to many places,She who is fatally coy.Men, who knew not her embraces,Called her by the name of Joy. I can’t recall the first moment I experienced the tease, the turmoil, the torment of Joy. When most speak of joy — when for many years I mentioned her — they mean a smiling…
Born-Again Founder: The Gracious Conviction of Elias Boudinot
As Americans celebrate our nation’s founding on July 4, we remember the group of disparate leaders who came together in Philadelphia in the middle of the 1770s to forge enough unity to set thirteen individual colonies on the road to nationhood. What we have in the Declaration of Independence (itself primarily a document listing disagreements…
Learning to Forgive Family
Audio Transcript Good Monday, everyone, on this day before Independence Day here in the States. Last time, last week, we addressed sibling rivalries — a common theme in the Bible, and a concern we should have for our own homes today. Sibling rivalries was Thursday’s theme, in APJ 1954. And today we look at forgiving…
The Voices We Hear in Suffering
Have you ever heard God’s voice? Has he spoken words that have strengthened your soul? Or transformed your perspective? Or brought you abiding peace? God’s words are unlike human words. They change us. They bear fruit. They do not — and cannot — return void (Isaiah 55:11). God spoke our whole world into existence. For…
Happy Pastors Make Healthy Churches
Hebrews 13 is not mainly about leadership, even though verse 7 says to imitate your leaders, and verse 17 says to obey and gladden your leaders, and verse 24 says to greet your leaders. This chapter is mainly about a radical Christian way of life, which is purchased by Jesus Christ through his suffering, and…
Priesthood of All Believers? How a Vital Truth Goes Awry
The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off on the other side. One can’t help him, no matter how one tries. —Martin Luther (Luther’s Works, 54:111) By 1520, Martin Luther was convinced that the Roman church couldn’t be helped. Or, at least,…
Gentleness Made Him Great: Learning from the Strongest of Men
We felt safe with Seth. I was 16 years old, in tenth grade — right in the middle of those promising and perilous teenage years — when he came to our church as the new youth minister. I was surrounded by the pressures and confusion of adolescence, and yet Seth Buckley brought a clarifying, stabilizing…
First In, Last Out, Laughing Loudest: The Shining Strength of Good Men
C.S. Lewis was fond of quoting English writer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), who once said, “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” Both Lewis and Johnson believed that people often possess the knowledge they need; it simply needs to be brought to mind at the appropriate time. I’ve found this to…
Where is the Biblical church?
Where is the Biblical church? Posted by appolus on June 29, 2023 Events in the history of the churches in the time of the apostles have been selected and recorded in the Book of the Acts in such a way as to provide a permanent pattern for the churches. Departures from the pattern has had disastrous…