Though Paul had planted the church in Corinth, having preached the gospel in that city and seeing God bring many men and women to faith in Jesus, his bona fides as an apostle seemed to be always questioned by the Corinthian believers. In each of his letters to this church he defended his role—and authority—as…

If you wrote a loved one a letter—let me stop there for a moment. A letter is a bit like a text or a post on social media, but with literal paper and ink, and generally only read by the person to whom it is written, and you send it through the mail, which takes…

I recently saw a comment online that gave me pause. The claim was that unless a preacher loves to spend hours and hours studying Scripture, he’s not really preaching, but is putting on a show. There is certainly some measure of truth to this claim. There are those for whom preaching is self-centered. Some desire…

The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom. This wisdom covers all sorts of topics related to a life of faith, from the very pursuit of wisdom (Proverbs 2:1–15) to avoiding adultery and other immorality (Proverbs 5:1–5) to the call to avoid laziness (Proverbs 6:6–11). A significant part of true wisdom is knowing and understanding…

So often we can read the letters that make up much of the New Testament Scriptures and forget how deeply personal they are. Consider 2 Timothy. The apostle Paul had been arrested and spent a few years awaiting a trial in Rome. He was eventually released and it is quite likely that he made it…