all in sin

If anything gives us the opportunity to be unfaithful to God it is trials. In the midst of suffering we are often tempted to doubt God’s faithfulness and friendship, goodness and grace, and power and promises. We sometimes wonder if we will make it, how we will make it, or why God is doing this to...

In Edith Wharton’s, The Age of Innocence , Newland Archer, the young man set in the ways of old New York, has a conversation with Countess Ellen Olenska, who has recently returned from Europe after leaving her wealthy husband for his many affairs. Olenska doesn’t fit into old New York for a variety...

Is it difficult for you to think about joy and suffering in the same sentence? Normally, when we are in the middle of suffering, we just want it to be over. Think of the woman who feels betrayed by her best friend, or the wife who feels betrayed by her husband. Consider the mother who longs for her...

Those who have experienced a regular Sunday evening service, often observe a “quietness” about them fondly. The morning service is associated with the frenetic pace of rounding up households with hair and outfits assembled, racing to roles in the service, coffee hour, and Sunday school, and back...

You would not know it from a vantage point on one of the many docks dotting the shoreline of Lake Murray, but this manmade reservoir is uniquely massive. The so-called “Jewel of South Carolina” has a surface area of 50,000 acres, over 650 miles of shoreline, and retains about 763 billion gallons of...

Jennie Faulding Taylor and Her Team of Brave Women In 1875, a serious drought in the north of China gave way to a dreadful four-year famine, with millions of deaths and a huge migration of people. Most casualties were in the province of Shanxi (an estimated 5.5 million deaths in four years)...

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” – Romans 8:14 Is there anything more comforting in all of God’s revealed word than the thought that in Christ we are sons of God? We are finding ourselves climbing higher and higher up the mountain peak of Romans 8 and now in verse 14 we...

Commenting on Exodus 21 and capital offenses, Umberto Cassuto notes that “ The Torah wishes to affirm and establish the principle, in the name of Divine law, that human life is sacred, and whoever assails this sanctity forfeits his own life – measure for measure.” [1] The civil right of human...

According to John Gill, ancient heathen soldiers who deserted their armies were forced to walk around in the marketplace dressed like women to be a humiliating punishment. [1] Nowadays, every June, men proudly prance down their American Main Street catwalks flouncing female garb. A year ago this...

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” – Romans 8:5-6 I first...