Author: Smith, Jeff

Commentators debate whether Jesus’s story about the rich man and Lazarus is a parable or an actual event that crossed the border between this physical…

And the brethren say, Amen! Not so fast, fellas, the ladies are listening. Perhaps to the fairer sex, the proverb will sound rather sexist and…

“Power tends to corrupt,” Lord Acton said, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” When greatness is defined by the…

There is a mix of pride and melancholy when a middle-aged man is shown a picture of himself in his high school yearbook. He stands…

Bible students debate whether Judge Jephthah actually meant to devote his daughter to human sacrifice when he vowed to offer whatever greeted him first at…

Vengeance is one of the most powerful human motivations. Whether it takes the form of a prank or a blow to the body or a…

Even casual discussions with friends and loved ones who are outside of the churches of Christ can reveal a very strange mythology that has developed…

Commentators estimate the Lord’s age at thirty years when his public ministry began with a trip into the wilderness to face the devil’s direct temptation….

I had the chicken pox when I was about six years old and I can still recall the horrible, Jobian itching that resulted. In my…

The readers of what we call the Hebrew letter were a people in great distress, convinced of the lordship of Jesus Christ, but overwhelmed by…

Many today revel in a perverse victim mentality, perking up their ears and focusing their eyes any time there is a possibility they can claim…

Every believer should be familiar with the words of Christ as they touch on the sentencing phase of Judgment Day. Where the wicked will hear,…

Our communication with God is not to be as one-sided as some of the phone conversations that we have; we are to speak to God in prayer and to listen to him as he speaks through the Bible, often answering there the very questions and needs we have raised. “One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). We should not wonder why there is so much static on the line if we are content to speak to God in needful prayer, but apathetic about listening for answers by reading his word (see Psalm 1:1-6).

When the will of God is assembled and active, it should become apparent that love is the reason behind it–love of God and love of neighbor will find expression when God’s will is heeded. If ever we find ourselves yearning to do something on which God’s will is either silent or prohibitive, you can be sure there is a flaw in our reasoning and what looks like love really is something less.

One of the often overlooked benefits of the local church is the practice of mutual correction that is to take place among people who genuinely…

Some people think of Satan as a being straight from mythology while others describe him as an impersonal evil force in the universe, but the…

I have always hated the expression, “Killing time,” even though I am guilty of it as much as anyone else.

One of the interesting parts of any book or movie about time travel is watching the characters try to figure out the progress and customs…

The image of Christ that lingers should never be one that looks the other way at sin and error, but which confronts it, sometimes mildly and sometimes boldly, as the occasion requires (Jude 22, First Thessalonians 5:14). To follow his example, we must first examine ourselves (Matthew 7:1-5). Only then do we truly honor the babe in the manger who became the savior on the cross by upholding all the truth all of his life.

Our giving may be the most obvious way in which we lay up treasure in heaven, investing our prosperity in the kingdom of our hope by providing money bags which do not grow old, a treasure that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:33-34). This is our Jubilee, not just every fifty years, but every first day of the week and every day in between–a simpler, selfless life.