May 23, 2021 | 2 Thessalonians 1:7b–10 DEVOTIONS What is biblical justice? How is it different than what we mean by justice today? Pastor and author Tim Keller explained: “In the West, when we think of justice, we think of individual rights. We think justice means freeing individuals from the constrictions of the group, freeing […]
May 22, 2021 | 2 Thessalonians 1:3–7a DEVOTIONS The word martyr originally meant “witness”—someone who testifies to truths they have personally seen, heard, and experienced. Even in the first generation of believers, though, the word came to signify someone who testified to truth under threat of death. That’s what we mean today— a martyr is […]
This Month’s Issue African American poet James Weldon Johnson depicted Death as God’s servant in his poem “Go Down Death: A Funeral Sermon.” In the poem, a woman was dying, and God summoned Death to liberate her soul and bring her to heaven to be in His presence. The pastoral voice in the poem admonishes […]
May 10, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Following Jesus should impact every area of our life. It changes the way we work and how we spend our money. It shapes the way we treat our neighbors and the way we address conflict in our own homes and marriages. But in this […]
May 9, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 3:11–13 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue When I was a child, pastoral prayers were a main feature of our church worship service. When the prayer began, I knew to settle in for a long one. Over the years, it seems that pastoral prayers have diminished in length and prominence or […]
May 8, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 3:6–10 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue My family, to be honest, is not always thankful. We have to work at it. One year, we wrote on slips of paper and filled a jar with things for which we were thankful. Some years, we keep a weekly gratitude journal to remind […]
May 7, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:5 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Picture for a moment those first moments of a family reunion. The entire extended family is reunited— aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and others. They may come from around the country or even fly in from overseas. They have not seen each other in […]
May 6, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue When Paul arrived in Thessalonica, he presented the gospel first to Jews in the local synagogue, as he often did. Some believed, but others responded with hostility, stirring up mob violence and driving the apostle out of the city. When he moved on to […]
May 5, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 2:7–12 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Any new parent will agree that caring for a newborn baby is an act of selfless love. The newborn baby relies completely on parents to meet its needs for food, physical closeness, and safety, while the little one mostly eats, sleeps, cries, and fills […]
May 3, 2021 | 1 Thessalonians 1:4–10 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Welsh missionary Timothy Richard arrived in China in 1870. For 45 years, he preached the gospel; distributed Scripture and Christian literature; organized famine relief; and founded schools, orphanages, and training programs. When this faithful servant died in 1919, he was recognized as one of […]