Christ was no thief, but He allowed Himself to be crucified with and for thieves. Why did He allow this? Love compelled Him to bear the sins of many.
The soul that sins shall bear his iniquity. How does a man bear his iniquity? The answer is quite simple: by suffering the consequences of those sins.
Everything in the Christian life is dependent upon prayer. Thankfully, we serve a God who hears, answers, and has respect unto prayer.
Far too many people have forsaken the simplicity which is in Christ and have instead pursued the complexity and labour of religion (2 Corinthians 11:3).
Paul was one of the most religious people ever to live. In spite of his religious efforts, he was condemned to hell until he trusted Christ as Saviour.
Death is the departure of the soul and spirit from the body, but where does each part of man end up after a man dies? The Bible answers this question and more.
How would making your motive match the Lord's motive change how you approach the Christian life (from witnessing to praying to Bible reading and so on)?
Breaking down a compound word into its parts is one of the easiest ways to understand what it means. The word conscience is a compound word made up of the root word science and the prefix con. The prefix con means with while the root word science means knowledge. As is often the case, the built-in dictionary of the Bible helps to solidify this connection, understanding, and definition. In 1 Corinthians 8:7 and 1 Corinthians 8:10, the word conscience is used in conjunction with the mention of knowledge possessed by men. Romans 2:15 makes a similar connection by joining the word conscience with the statement that something is written in the heart. As such, God designed a man’s conscience as an internal tool to place pure and righteous knowledge within an individual that he would otherwise lack.
Many people are quite zealous of following the traditions of men. For instance, the apostle Paul was so exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers that he “persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women” (Acts 22:4). This same act has been true throughout church history. History reveals that many saints of God were severely punished and even put to death for rejecting unscriptural traditions such as infant baptism. In some cases, babies were ripped from the arms of their mothers and cast into lakes and rivers. Others were tossed into arenas with lions for rejecting traditions choosing to hold up scripture. Why? Because men are zealous of their traditions and will persecute to keep their ways intact!
Sometimes a deep chasm exists between the doctrines, traditions, and commandments of men and those that are God-ordained. Perhaps no passage better identifies this contrast than Mark chapter 7. The religious leaders of Christ’s day held “the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3, 5), “the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8), and their own “tradition” (Mark 7:9, 13). In doing so, they rejected “the commandment of God” (Mark 7:9). This clearly displays the critical importance of identifying whose traditions one willingly receives and accepts. If traditions are truly of the Lord, they are to be accepted and implemented into the believer’s life (2 Thessalonians 2:15). Yet, those man-made, unscriptural traditions are to be rejected altogether.
