If ‘doing good’ does not equate to ‘preaching the gospel without words’ (for the gospel cannot be preached without words!), why is it imperative that God’s people should be ‘eager to do good’ (Tit 2:14)? Why must we ‘not grow weary in doing good’ (Gal 6:9)?
1. Because we love God, and want to be obedient to his command to do good
‘By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.…
The importance of this command is underscored by our Lord himself (Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31), along with Paul (Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14) and James (Jas 2:8).
Love for neighbour is presented in Leviticus 19 as highly practical, and covers five areas of everyday life.
1. Loving others with our possessions, Lev 19:9-11.
The practice of gleaning requires not only generosity on the part of the landowner but industry on the part of the poor. But,
Simon Ponsonby is a well-respected church leader, Bible teacher, and author.
He has written about how, after 30 years of ministry, he realised that his faith had grown somewhat cold. He felt disappointed by the drift he saw in his own denomination (the Church of England), and discouraged by the moral and spiritual failings of some of his friends and former role models. In his own life and ministry, he had become spiritually dry, tired, and inward-looking.…
‘Contending for the faith’, writes Lee Gatiss in Evangelicals Now, is a phrase often used by Christians, but not always with a clear sense of its meaning.
Gatiss offers a helpful, if hard-hitting, summary of ‘the biblical doctrine of contending’:-
In an article in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, D.A. Carson warns against ‘word-based reductionism’:-…
The Spirit often effects greater fruitfulness in our lives in the presence of adversity, Jas 1:2-4; Rom 8:28:-
