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Jesus’ Mission to the Lost: Luke 15
When reading Luke 15, it is easy to forget the context , especial ly when reading the parable of the prodigal son. The chapter opens with the Pharisees and scribes criticizing Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners (vv. 1 …Read More
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The Loving Father
“God is love” (1 John 4:8). He is also Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons, yet one God. We must never lose sight of the oneness of God, yet we relate to each of the persons in a …Read More
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Nursemaid to the World: The Church Amid Adversity and Sickness
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian pastor, not only was a masterful pulpiteer, a brilliant administrator, a gifted writer, and a selfless evangelist, he was a determined champion of the deprived and the rejected. He spent more than half of …Read More
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Mercy Triumphs Through Judgment
“Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD , and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an …Read More
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The Old Testament God of Compassion and Mercy
Perhaps you are one of those people, like me, who grew up thinking about the Old Testament as a book filled with wrath and judgment, doom and gloom, atrocity and injustice. To make matters worse, the New Testament appeared to …Read More
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Mercy Ministry
Christ has given His church deacons to lead the church in its ministries of mercy. Deacons serve those in the church by ministering to people in their times of need. Though deacons lead in this area, ministries of mercy are …Read More
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No Ordinary Mercy
India’s caste system is huge and complicated. It has many divisions and subdivisions. The caste system divides the people into unbreakable groups divided by occupation, money, and position. In the 1930s, the British discovered a previously unknown caste. This …Read More
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It Can’t Get No Worse?
In 1967, the Beatles released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One of the classic songs on that album is titled “Getting Better.” Many people are familiar with the catchy, upbeat chorus: “I’ve got to admit …Read More
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Judgment and Mercy
When I began to consider what I should say in these pages, I found myself pulled in two directions. My first impulse was to lament the spiritual decay that people of my generation have observed at close range and to …Read More
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Mercy for the Impetuous
Peter didn’t just blow it, he blew it badly. “Though they all fall away…I will never fall away” (Matt. 26:33). Peter’s resolution we admire for its confidence and bravery. But it is a statement relying on …Read More
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Lessons from the Fall
The Gospels depict the arrest and trial of Jesus in a way that shows us not only the insensibility of His accusers, but also His own steadfast faithfulness to the will of God through suffering and humiliation. Our Lord’s …Read More
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The Reluctant Prophet
Anyone who has ever attended a Sunday school class knows that Jonah was the man who was eaten alive by a fish and then vomited out three days later. But that’s about the extent of most people’s understanding …Read More
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Jacob I Loved, but Esau Have I Hated
How do we as a community of faith relate to those without faith, to the declared enemies of God? There are no longer any Edomites (descendants of Esau) around today, but clearly there are those who are their spiritual …Read More
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A Trickster Tricked
The biblical measure of justice is equivalence, stated as a maxim by Moses in the law “eye for eye” (Ex. 21:24). The ancient Roman jurists recognized that the principle of equivalence is the purest standard of justice. They named …Read More
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Pure Religion
The resurrection day of Jesus — the first Easter — was no merely private experience of Jesus. In space and time, the body of Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified, dead, and buried, was raised to life again. Amazing! And what else …Read More
