Humbly Receive God and Find Your True Need Met
Discover how the parables in Luke 18 reveal the crucial need to humbly receive God, regardless of your life’s circumstances. Find encouragement and truth. Visit https://www.thegospelsaves.me for more.
Is Being “Good” Good Enough? A Biblical Perspective on Salvation
I have often heard someone say, “I think I am a good person,” or variations thereof: “They are a good person,” or “There are many good people in this world.” Often, this sentiment is paired with the notion that being good is all one needs to secure a place in heaven. This thinking is attractive…
Lessons from the Gibeonites: Honoring Commitments
In Joshua 9, we’re introduced to an interesting group of individuals, the Gibeonites. Having heard of the great successes of Israel (verse 3), they put together a scheme designed to save their lives. Verses 4-5 detail the great lengths they took to make it look as though they came from a far country: …they worked…
Lessons from the Withered Fig Tree
Please read about the withered fig tree in Mark 11:12-14, 20-25 and consider: Fig trees in Palestine may live as long as four hundred years. A well-cultivated tree should produce fruit for ten months of the year in those locales. However, because of the difficulties of translation, some have extrapolated a point from this text…
How to Use the Law
Teaching in higher education for ten years taught me that you cannot assume people will do what’s obviously right, and they will not admit to understanding what is obviously wrong. When people are left without marked boundaries to exercise their own free will, they will defy their own conscience, ignore any sense of right and…
It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To
Satan secured the scepter of government in the earth from Adam by right of conquest. He has organized the present world system on his own cosmic principles: pride, ambition, selfishness, force, greed, and pleasure. The world system—scientific, cultured, and elegant—is dominated by satanic principles, and beneath its deceptive veneer is a seething cauldron of ambition…
Memories of Tom
EDITOR’S NOTE: Brother Tom Dennis was an evangelist among the churches of Christ for many decades. In addition to his many good works, Tom served as the editor and publisher of The Gospel Message for a few years. Paul said of his fellow worker Epaphroditus, “Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and…
The Eternal Optimist
When Jesus was in Jerusalem with his disciples just a few days before he was betrayed and condemned to death, he had a conversation with them about the troubling times that lay ahead. He warned of unrest among the Jews that would lead to the catastrophic destruction of the temple in Jerusalem along with much…
Entangled in the World
No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a solder (2 Timothy 2:4). The world wants your attention. There are an endless number of causes that try to get our attention: political issues, social issues, environmental issues. Much of the news…
The Perfection of Ketchup
Malcolm Gladwell wrote in an article entitled “The Ketchup Conundrum,” “What was true about a yellow condiment that went on hot dogs was not true about a tomato condiment that went on hamburgers…I guess ketchup is ketchup” (What the Dog Saw, p. 50). The article details why ketchup lacks several varieties like mustard. Instead, one…