Posts from 2019 (Page 4)

Brethren or Burdens? I’ve never smelled a dead body, but I’ve been told you never forget the stench. I can only imagine, then, how cemented the scene of Cain’s seething rage must have been in his memory. What a disturbing image: the sight of his own brother’s beaten, lifeless corpse lying before his feet, as a crimson river silently flowed into the thirsty ground beneath him. And it’s that smell, the foul stench of death, that wafts through the Bible…

Naaman’s Baptism There are many types and anti-types in the Bible. Many are deliberate Old Testament stories or characters that foreshadow principles revealed in later days. Deliberate or not, there is a parallel to baptism seen in a well-known Old Testament story – the healing of Naaman. On the surface, some parallels are clearly evident. Both involve washing in water; both persons are healed and made purely clean. Beyond that, a closer look at Naaman reveals an attitude seen over…

Laying on of Hands Ken Fleeman (2019-01-20)

Discipline The idea of discipline brings up negative emotions. We instantly think of punishment for wrong doing. However, discipline is better understood as a training process. Discipline is defined as “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience” (Google Dictionary). When it comes to our spiritual training, the teacher is to “Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2 NKJV). Note that this requires patience. Punishment should…

Purpose Life can seem mundane. Life is in fact mundane. The sun rises and sets. Generations come and go. The winds run in their circuit. The rivers run continuously into the seas, but the seas never fill. Man’s work is never done. Man is never satisfied with his work. Solomon set out to understand everything done under heaven and concluded that all is vanity. He pursued wisdom, madness and folly and might as well have tried to grasp the wind.…