***
Sunday, December 31, 2023
New Year’s Eve
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- BRP Update: I’ve made a couple of changes to the Bible Reading Plan for 2024 and beyond – one minor and one not so minor.
- BRP1: NT Gospels – I’ve put the four Gospels back in their traditional Matthew, Mark, Luke, John order (instead of leading with Mark). I’m expecting more newcomers to this site going forward and wanted one less potential point of confusion for them. If I were dealing with everyone face to face, I’d probably stick with reading Mark first because I think it helps in logically digesting the four complementary accounts; but visitors to the site are likely to encounter the Matthew-Mark reversal in the BRP before they encounter my explanation of it; this change removes that potential bump in the road for them. I’m leaving the logical comparison of the four Gospels in the BSN.
- BRP2: NT Epistles (Acts through Revelation) - No change.
- BRP3: OT – Over the last few years I’ve struggled with the place of the Old Testament in a Christ-Centered BRP. Of course, the OT is full of references to Christ – it’s all about Him (#FJOT)! But you know from experience that many of these references are far less explicit than NT references to Him. To achieve a Christ-centered focus, therefore, two of the three daily readings are from the NT – to engrain Christ in our minds and prepare us for the day. The OT, however, is roughly three times as long as the NT. One chapter a day in the OT will only get us a third of the way through it in a year. If we bump up the OT chapters to 3-5 per day so that we can complete the OT in a year, then the OT will end up dominating our Bible reading time – reducing the Christ-Centered focus. But if we spread the OT reading out over the three years it takes to complete it at one chapter a day, it’s too easy to “lose the plot” or get bogged down in the minutia of genealogies, Levitical ordinances, and such. Therefore, one of the projects I took on in 2023 was to condense the OT. This condensation covers all the history that is in the OT, and supplements it with samplings from the books of wisdom and prophecy. Basically, I was able to condense the length by reducing duplication of information. I took on this project with much trepidation, but I am cautiously excited about the outcome. If you want more explanation of the overall plan and how I made decisions about how and what to condense in the OT, that begins here. Those explanations also include the provisions I’ve made to make sure that the parts of the OT not included do not become forgotten or set completely aside. Far be it from me to say that any word in the Bible is unimportant! I’m just saying that the word “Christ” is the most important.
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed,
Colossians 3:4
then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
***
Saturday, December 30, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider Further: Yesterday in this space, I pointed out the difference between Christianity and Christianity. An analogy of this difference is modern-day Judaism, which comes from the Pharisees and Sadducees who rejected the Messiah. That is, modern-day Jews, like their spiritual ancestors, prefer the company of Abraham’s descendants to that of Abraham’s God. Analogously, practitioners of Christianity – which is Churchianity – prefer the company of those who say they are following Christ to that of Christ Himself. In other words, synagogues are full of people who don’t believe Messiah came the first time…and churches are full of people who don’t believe He came the second. He came both times…just as He said He would. Therefore, He’s here now…only this time we’re the infants.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
john 14:18
***
Friday, December 29, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Pursue Christianity, not Christianity.
Jer 17:5 ¶ Thus says the LORD,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
Jer 17:6 “For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
Jer 17:7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD
And whose trust is the LORD.
Jer 17:8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.
What I’m saying is that Christianity has, sadly, come to be about Christians instead of about Christ. That difference leads to very different outcomes. Pursue Christians and you end up like a bush in the desert; pursue Christ and you end up like a tree by a stream. Make Christianity great again by returning wholeheartedly to its one true namesake.
***
Thursday, December 28, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: In 2022, the landmark Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the previous landmark decisions of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Dobbs decision did not make abortion illegal; rather, it simply got the Supreme Court out of the abortion debate, returning the issue to the other branches of government – that is, to the way things were before 1973. Nevertheless, pro-abortion forces have reacted to Dobbs as if it were a direct assault on ”a woman’s right to an abortion.” This has resulted in electoral success for them. That is, people on both sides of the political aisle have noticed that since Dobbs, Democrats are beating Republicans whenever and wherever the issue of abortion is relevant to voters. Therefore, while the reversal of Roe v Wade was initially thought to be a victory for the anti-abortion side, it has turned out to be a victory for the pro-abortion side. This social media post gives the most succinct explanation I have found of why that is. This explanation also reinforces the graph I linked for you below (“A Sign of the Times” December 19 which effectively depicts the current outcome of America’s culture wars). We are better off knowing the reality of the times in which we live no matter how bad it is. Knowing reality is always better than believing a lie.
The current reality in America is that a critical mass of our fellow citizens have hardened their hearts against God and His ways. For the sake of our children and greater posterity, we must be more committed to what is good than hardened hearts are to what is evil. We have lost the political power to stop pro-abortion folks from killing their infants, but we must still teach our children – at the appropriate times – that they must never consider abortion anything other than the murder of a child for the convenience of an adult no matter how much broader society thinks otherwise.
“Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces
ezekiel 3:8-9
and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.
Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead.
Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them,
though they are a rebellious house.”
***
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- “There is nothing new under the sun”: The term “virtue signaling” is just the 21st-century way of describing what Jesus called “practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.”
Matt 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
Matt 6:2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Matt 6:3 “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
Matt 6:4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
We can be tempted to virtue signal not just “in the streets” but even under our own roofs. Therefore, let us “Beware” just as Jesus is teaching us to do.
***
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
The Aftermath
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: In the aftermath of Christmas day, what will your family remember? What you repeat and emphasize.
Seek to build and maintain a house of Immanuel, not Ichabod.
Rome wasn’t built in a day…and neither is your house. - Something Surprising: Speaking of Rome, here’s NYC’s Times Square lit up with an homage to the birth of Christ.
***
Monday, December 25, 2023
Christmas Day
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Remember: In yesterday morning’s reading, we were reminded that Jesus was born in a manger “because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). This is forever the story of God and man: that God seeks a place in man’s midst but man does not make room for Him.
We seek to remedy this wrong by devoting ourselves to reading the Bible at least twice a day. We do this by carving out scheduled PDT’s and FDT’s and keeping to those schedules. We do not limit our Bible reading to these times, but we do discipline ourselves to establish and keep to these minimums – lest we crowd Christ out of our lives like we used to.
What makes you a better person than you used to be but the time you give to let Him speak into your life and your family’s life? The moment you stop this daily practice, corruption sets in. Then, whether in a short or long time, you will learn the hard way that “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4; Deut 8:3). Don’t learn the hard way; instead, learn the easy way to daily make plenty of room for the word of God in your life and in the life of your family. Then angels will keep your house labeled Immanuel (“God with us” – Matt 1:23) and not Ichabod (“the glory has departed” – 1 Sam 4:19-22). I know of what I speak.
***
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Christmas Eve
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: A subject that has trended in America recently is “men thinking about the Roman Empire.” (If you’re unfamiliar with it, all you have to do is google what I put in quotation marks.) Even if a man has no other reason to think about the Roman Empire, he can’t help noticing that as Rome fell, so America is falling – decadence, sexual depravity, low fertility, rampant political corruption, hordes of foreigners streaming in, and so on. Why then are women surprised that men think this way? Because women, as a general rule, are deceived by what’s going on, but men are not. This is as it has been from the beginning.
For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
1 Timothy 2:13-14
And it was not Adam who was deceived,
but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
God gave Adam the command about the forbidden fruit before He created Eve. Therefore, Eve learned about the commandment through Adam. Adam’s belief in it, however, should have been stronger because he had heard it directly from God Himself. Satan could take advantage of Eve’s weaker connection to the commandment to trick her, but Adam knew better and therefore his sin in eating the fruit was greater than hers. (“…To whom much is given, much is required…Lk 12:48)
Not all women are deceived about America’s fall from greatness, but the ones who understand are outliers. They are like the godly women of the Bible – Deborah, Abigail, Esther, Mary, Priscilla, and others. Still, such women are rare today. We must raise up more of them.
We live in a culture dominated by feminist principles, and men have grown weary of fighting it. But this does not excuse us. We are more responsible for America going the way of Rome than women are because because we are following women instead of leading them. We need to stoke our love for our Lord and for our women. They deserve our best. They deserve most of all that we should do our duty.
***
Saturday, December 23, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Isaiah lamented that he lived in an “unclean” society and that he himself could not be exempted from that uncleanness (Is 6:5-7). We know that feeling. But the Lord forgave him because the Lord forgives all who call upon His name and turn from their uncleanness to live instead for His pleasure. On this basis, you and I can turn from our sins and instead teach our households from the Bible what we are learning of and from the Lord.
At this time of year, we are reminded that God’s great works have small beginnings, that motherhood is miraculous, and that wise men honor such truths. In this way, we and our families are engaged in a daily process of healing as the world around us gets sicker and sicker. How much longer before the hammer of the Lord’s judgment comes thundering down on our nation? However long it is, we must remember that wise men never stop seeking Him. And that’s why they and their families can hope to find salvation in the day of judgment whenever it comes.
***
Friday, December 22, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: What I said to this man, I say to you.
***
Thursday, December 21, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Remember: Men, you cannot abdicate your responsibility to teach your family about Christ. Neither can you outsource this responsibility to a church. You cannot even offload this responsibility onto your wife. She can and should help you teach the children, but the buck stops with you. It is the duty of a man to marry a woman, have children, and teach them about Christ. America is in the shape its in because men have not done their duty. It’s too late for America, but it’s not too late for your family IF…you do your duty and stick to it. The Lord wants to be your refuge in all the trouble to come.
***
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider:
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
– john the baptist, speaking of jesus (john 1:29)
The only reason we become unwilling to heed this exhortation is an unwillingness to let go of our sin. We can have Jesus or we can have our sin…but we can’t have both.
***
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- A Sign of the Times: The day before yesterday I wrote below that it is no longer reasonable to contend that a majority of Americans are moral. Then yesterday I came across this statistical validation of the point. I stress the point today not to dismay you, but to fortify your soul for the battle ahead. Your children will have a harder time with the culture than you have had; therefore, you must adequately prepare them so that they can prevail against the persecution they will face. The Lord will deliver you and your children, but you must daily look to Him in faith in order to be able to see and follow the paths to victory He will pave for you in the midst of the world’s chaos.
AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?
1 peter 4:18
Even if at points you feel boxed in between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, know that the Lord Jesus Christ will make a way for you to go free that will not work for your enemies.
***
Monday, December 18, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- A Sign of the Times: I learned yesterday of a book that was just published in August titled The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? It’s written by a couple of pastors based on sophisticated statistical research from a couple of professional sociologists. The authors define “a dechurched person as someone who used to go to church at least once per month but now goes less than once a year.”
- The book’s promotional material states,
We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined…but in the opposite direction.
A reviewer of the book says,
The authors state that upwards of 40 million Americans have stopped going to Church. This has huge implications for all of America. The percentage of people who attend church has dropped to all-time lows, below 50%.
That’s 40 million fewer church attenders in the last 25 years – in other words, just since 1998. And the introduction to the book includes the following statements:
The size, pace, and scope of dechurching in America is at such historic levels that there is no better phrase to describe this phenomenon than the Great Dechurching.
We are currently in the middle of the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country.
[N]o theological tradition, age group, ethnicity, political affiliation, education level, geographic location, or income bracket escaped the dechurching in America.
Of course, the ultimate point of the book is to explain how these people can be brought back to church. (It’s directed to church leaders and is currently ranked the #1 Bestseller in the category of “Christian Church Growth” according to Amazon.) You know I want to direct people to Jesus and the Bible rather than to church. Why then do I even mention the book? Because without reading any more of the book than this, there are at least two points that I can stress: 1) the radical shift it documents is a fact worth knowing, regardless of its implications, and 2) awareness of that fact prompts me to remind you that there is no virtue in leaving church – there is only virtue in leaving church for the purpose of following Jesus more closely. In other words, let us indeed forsake churchianity, but only for the purpose of pursuing Christianity.
***
Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- A Sign of the Times: The “Moral Majority was an American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s.” – Wikipedia
Whether a majority of Americans were moral in the 1980’s is a debatable point. Whether a majority of them is now is not. (For validation, see the chart linked under “Sign of the Times” on December 19 above.)
***
Saturday, December 16, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: As it is righteous for a man to make adequate and ongoing provision for physically defending his family, so it is right for him to make adequate and ongoing provision for spiritually defending them. As for the latter, that’s what I’m here to help you do; as for the former, there are other folks that can help you with that.
***
Friday, December 15, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Since you can’t please everyone but you can please Him, why not forget about trying to please everyone today and instead pour all your energy into pleasing Him? (God’s pronouns are “He” and “Him.”)
And without faith it is impossible to please Him,
hebrews 11:6
for he who comes to God must believe that He is
and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
***
Thursday, December 14, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: God is a stabilizer – Satan is a de-stabilizer. Instability characterizes our times because Jesus Christ is being censored by an increasingly secularized society.
And He will be the stability of your times,
isaiah 33:6
A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
The fear of the LORD is his treasure.
Fill your heart with the knowledge of Him during your PDT’s and FDT’s because you’re not likely to hear people even mention His name during your interactions with the world today (unless they wish to curse).
***
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: There are two videos, each of which I have separately shown you before. However, I want to present them again, this time side by side so that the contrast between them will be more obvious. It’s the contrast that I cannot get out of my head. I think of the first one (2-minutes) as “shakshuka girl” because she expressed more interest in shakshuka than in being married and having children. I think of the second one (1-minute) as “kingdom girl” because the joy she expressed in family life is central to the kingdom of God. These two women seem similar in age and appearance, but their attitudes could not be more different – and that difference is the difference between life and death for a society. A society that by its educational system and cultural climate produces more shakshuka girls than kingdom girls is going to die because its happiness and population can only decline. This is one of the main reasons we see America and most of the western world on a trend line of collapse. These two women embody the future – rather, alternative futures.
The man has to lead, but he cannot make the woman follow. Thus her role is every bit as important as his; but alas, it is in her power to trade it for a lonely future. Girls are being trained by our educational system and culture to compete with men instead of partner with them. The equality they’ve gained is a pittance when compared to the riches of the equality they gave up. In a manner of speaking, Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of shakshuka; secularism and feminism encourage women to follow his bad example.
Now the man called his wife’s name Eve,
genesis 3:20
because she was the mother of all the living.
No mother, no living.
***
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- The Bible: Most of you have been reading the Bible long enough to appreciate the symmetry of its two testaments.
***
Monday, December 11, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: This man (1-minute video) is right that “there are enough negative aspects of the organizational church” to justify not attending it, but his malfeasance as a public health official has dramatically demonstrated how wrong he has been to think that his “own personal ethics” were enough to keep him “going on the right path.” The paths he has been walking have been anything but right. This is why I have emphasized to you that there is no virtue in not going to church – the virtue is in going directly to Jesus instead.
Luke has told us that Jesus specifically warned against “people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Luke 18:9). We need an authority and source of knowledge who is higher than ourselves. Otherwise, we are just making ourselves out to be God. This is what’s wrong with secularism: it makes human beings into the supreme beings.
All Christian churches claim to be following Jesus and the Bible. But if they were really doing this, they would be telling you to follow Jesus and Bible instead of following them. They have put themselves in the place of Christ. In other words, Fauci and the church are doing the same thing: putting themselves in the place of Christ. Be different: worship Christ and keep His word.
***
Sunday, December 10, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: It is obvious – even to people who are not all that spiritual – that storms clouds of judgment are enveloping our nation. There’s a sense of dread about what’s to come. I’m not just talking about 2024 – I’m talking about what comes after it, which is likely to be much worse. What then are we to do? Be all the more zealous to be found worthy of saving. The Lord has not lost track of you. Give Him things to smile about – a reason to make exceptions for you and yours, a reason to give you a “pass over” in the midst of judgments to come.
Rev 3:19 ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
***
Luke 14:34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
Luke 14:35 “It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
***
Heb 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
***
1 Pet 4:18 AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?
The flood was a major inconvenience for Noah and his family, but something much worse for everyone else. Everyone’s going to get jostled, but not everyone has to fall down. You be Noah to your family. The ark you are building for them is not made of wood; it’s an ark of the spirit…that brings physical protections as well as spiritual ones.
2 Pet 2:9 …the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
***
Saturday, December 9, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Regarding the de-personalization of Christianity (what I wrote about here yesterday), that problem gets solved for you when you get connected, or re-connected, with Jesus. And I tell you how to do that in this book (website) – The Duty of a Man. If you do that (that is, join Him or re-join Him), and maintain that connection, you do not need to join anyone or anything else – least of all me.
If I wrote a book about mathematics and included gems like “2 + 2 = 4” and “nuthin’ from nuthin’ leaves nuthin’,” would you feel compelled join “The Society of Men Who Know Math”? Of course not! You’d just live your live with the knowledge, or the reinforcement of knowledge, that you received from the book.
The world doesn’t need another religion. And Christianity doesn’t need another church or denomination. God forbid that anyone should try to form a group of people out of the message I preach. I’m here to restore men to Christ, and through that restoration, to their families as well. The church was a transitional structure to get the world from a Jewish-Gentile distinction back to the way things were in the beginning, with all human beings knowing they have the same ancestors: Adam and Eve. That’s the kingdom of God. Therefore, let us make no religious or racial distinctions among ourselves. Let us be devoted to Christ above all, to family next, and then, in that context, we can be fit to serve the rest of our neighbors.
“I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people,
Isaiah 65:2-5
Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts,
A people who continually provoke Me to My face,
Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks;
Who sit among graves and spend the night in secret places;
Who eat swine’s flesh,
And the broth of unclean meat is in their pots.
Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me,
For I am holier than you!’
These are smoke in My nostrils,
A fire that burns all the day.”
***
Friday, December 8, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: In our time, Christianity has been de-personalized. Not de-personalized from individuals, but de-personalized from Christ. That is, it has become a Christ-less Christianity, with church having taken the place of Christ. For a long time, people have been saying we need to put Christ back into Christmas. Indeed, we need to do that. But, more importantly, we need to put Him back into Christianity.
This is why we go to the Bible and prayer every morning – because that’s the most direct way possible of getting to Jesus Christ. That’s where we find His words, His thoughts, His mind. In the context of eternal things, we hear the voice of His Spirit speaking to us of present things. And thus we plan our days from a spiritual, rather than a fleshly, point of view.
There is a tendency for us to focus on ourselves – even in our devotions. But this is to lose focus on Jesus. Concentrate on learning more about Him, and in that process you will learn all you need to know about yourself. Evil needs to be turned away from – it’s goodness that needs to be studied and understood.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
john 3:30
***
Thursday, December 7, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Christianity is like a healing balm, salve, or ointment that, when applied to a wound, fosters healing of that wound. Let Christianity be applied anew to the wounds in this world, and let it be applied daily. But let not this ointment be contaminated with foreign elements or objects. Christianity is Christ, who is documented in the Bible – nothing more and nothing less.
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:3
***
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- History and Current Events: These people (meaning the two persons posting and the social scientist one of them quotes) seem to rightly understand that Christianity stands in the same place against the world today that it stood against the Roman Empire in the beginning. That is, secularized America has the power, prestige, and morals of pagan Rome. Secularized America is anti-Christianity…but Christianity shall ultimately prevail because it is the truth and God will always support those who take their stand on the truth, no matter how small their numbers when they take that stand. If we study the history of how the Roman Empire was Christianized, we will be able to replicate that success while simultaneously avoiding the mistakes that led to our present condition. To follow Christ is to be in a learning mode.
***
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: Apparently, those who love Jesus and the Bible are more blessed than ever. The specific focus of this 2-minute video diatribe is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but its broader focus is on everyone who takes seriously the Bible’s view of abortion, sexuality, and evolution. The antichrist spirit in America is reaching fever pitch.
Luke 6:22 “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.”
***
Monday, December 4, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Christianity is impaired in our time because it has come to be about Christians instead of being about Christ. As long as Christianity remains about Christians, it will just be another form of identity politics – tribalism, gang warfare in a ghetto. A return to Christ will purify Christianity and save the world.
***
Sunday, December 3, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Christianity is the only way of thinking that can save the world, but it cannot be imposed on the masses as secularism and Islam seek to do. Wokeism is currently the most aggressively-malignant form of secularism, but all secularism (except for Christian secularism) is bad. (Christian secularism is the kind of limited secularism America had at its founding – no national church like England had.) Thus secularism is like cancer, while wokeism and Islam are like pancreatic cancer. In practically every nation today, either secularism or Islam is seeking to impose its will on the citizenry. In the western world (America and Europe) secularism has replaced Christianity as the dominant way of thinking; meanwhile, in those same western countries, Islam is using secularism (and the religious pluralism secularism claims to foster) to build up its strength so it can eventually replace secularism as the dominant way of thinking. Thus the current trend line is that secularism and Islam are headed for a collision with each other. Apart from a change in that trend line, Christianity will continue to lose ground either way.
Christianity is the teaching of Christ. Unlike secularism and Islam, it cannot be imposed on the masses; rather, it must be accepted and practiced by the individual. Before it can be practiced as a nation, it must be practiced as families. Without the cohesion of families, there can be no cohesion as a nation. All “isms” – that is, all religions and ideologies – resist Christianity because Christianity is the truth, and whatever is against truth cannot be truth.
If the current trend line is to be changed, Christianity must rise from the dead…for churchianity has smothered it. Institutional Christianity is not a candle; it’s a candle snuffer. True Christianity is Jesus and the Bible – that is, Jesus Christ and His teaching. He is King of the universe, and all individuals need to become disciples of this king. As synagogues today deny the first coming of Messiah, so churches today deny the second coming of Messiah. Thus institutional Christianity subordinates Christ the King to its own purposes. It is not willing to die so that He can live. They are willing for Him to decrease so that they can increase. Christianity was not intended for Christians – it was intended for everyone. Don’t seek to be known as a Christian by others; seek to be known by Christ as His. So live for Christ, that others envy your peace. If you succeed, others may call you a Christian, but don’t be distracted by that. Keep your attention on the One giving you the peace.
***
Saturday, December 2, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: What a scandalous God we serve! “Scandalous?” Yes – at least in the world’s eyes. They do not want to be reminded that when God came into the world as one of us we rejected Him. Immanuel – “God with us” – came to earth as a silent seed in a mother’s womb. He was birthed as an infant, just as we all were. But when He grew to maturity, full of fruit for all who encountered Him, we cut Him down. And yet He loves us anyway! He knew we would treat Him this way and He came in spite of it!
Why then don’t people want to hear about Jesus’ bloody death, that gruesome cross? Why do they consider it icky to talk about Him in public life or normal conversation? Why do they talk so freely about sex and yet act embarrassed when someone brings up the way Jesus died? Because they do not want to face their sins!
Face your sins like a man…and find forgiveness for them in the blood Jesus Christ shed for you. Do not be ashamed of Him and He will not be ashamed of you. Do not be squeamish about what your redemption cost Him. Let Him enjoy whom He has bought and paid for. Let today be another gift you give to Him.
1 Cor 2:2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
the apostle paul
Gal 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Phil 2:8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
***
Friday, December 1, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Further to Yesterday’s Point: Elon Musk is an example of people today who hunger for righteousness but aren’t aware that they can find it in Jesus and the Bible. In his “Howard Beale” moment this week, the richest man in the world demonstrated an appallingly limited vocabulary (repeatedly vocalizing pop culture’s favorite one-word profanity); however, he simultaneously demonstrated enormous courage by taking a very public stand against people capable of stripping him of all his wealth. The real payoff comes in the last 15 seconds of this 5-minute video clip when he says, “What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil.” If someone will give Elon a Bible and tell him about Jesus, he’ll see that his hunger for righteousness can be satisfied. Instead of hearing a call to follow to Christ, however, all he’s likely to hear is a call to follow Christians – and he knows that won’t make things any better.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
MattHEW 5:6
for they shall be satisfied.”
Thursday, November 30, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: Why do so few people today want to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ? There are two kinds of people who don’t want to hear the gospel: people who hunger for pleasure and people who hunger for righteousness. People who want to continue following the lusts of their flesh don’t want to hear it because they know it will cramp their style; people who want to live more righteously don’t want to hear it because they think it means they will have to start going to church and they don’t view churchgoers as any more moral than they currently are. There’s nothing that can be done with the first group, but the status quo can be altered for the second group if they will read the Bible and recognize that Jesus commands them to do things other than churchgoing – things much more demanding than that.
***
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Something to Consider: A man’s reputation and his character are related, but they are not the same thing. A man’s reputation is what people think of his character, while his character is the kind of man he actually is. A man’s reputation may match his character, but it does not always match his character. Jesus died because he had developed a bad reputation among some people; but he rose from the dead because of his character.
Let us seek not to have a good reputation in this world, but rather to have good character. The reputation we have with God is the only fully reliable indicator of our character.
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:1
***
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: Our generation of Americans has been convinced that the New Testament does not consist of historically-reliable texts. What convinced them was pop culture (including books and movies, such as The Da Vinci Code) and college professors (including biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman). Yet the 27 New Testament texts are the most historically-reliable of all ancient texts because of the quantity and quality of ancient manuscripts we have today. Therefore, if what the New Testament tells us about the ancient past is unreliable, then all ancient history is unreliable. Of course, this is absurd. But pop culture and college professors are teaching the public all sorts of absurd things – like males can become females. So we should not be surprised that media and universities are making society dumber and dumber about everything – not just the history of how a poor Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi changed the course of humanity.
***
Monday, November 27, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: This is you this morning…waking, praying the Lord’s prayer, and then reading your morning Bible chapter…pouring over His words, looking for reminders as well as for fresh meaning.
I rise before dawn and cry for help;
Psalm 119:147
I wait for Your words.
This is how you keep your door open to Him, inviting Him to guide your life day by day.
***
Sunday, November 26, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: If God has not spoken through Jesus of Nazareth, then He has not spoken through anyone at all! All of human history attests that no human being ever lived a life like that of Jesus – who was supported by miracles, the quantity and quality of which have never been matched in any other human life. God was making a clear and emphatic statement to the human race through the life of Jesus the Galilean – Jesus the Jew. The only reason more people don’t know Him and follow Him is censorship of His story.
The two greatest censors of important truth in the world today are secularism and Islam. Secularism says we can’t talk about Jesus because it’s not fair to those who don’t believe in Him. Islam says Muhammad is greater than Jesus. Secularism and Islam are therefore founded on lies. Truth and lies are not compatible. One will give way to the other. Choose wisely. Ignore the censors and revisionists of history.
***
Saturday, November 25, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: Jesus is not merely the Lord of those who call themselves Christians; He is Lord of everyone. His commandments do not apply merely to those who call themselves Christians; they apply to everyone. We do people a disservice when we speak or think of them as either Christian or non-Christian…because all people are Christ’s!
The word “Christian” has come to be a social label – a name tag that people wear, distinguishing “good” people from “bad” people. But God sees past human labels. Don’t seek to be known by people as a Christian; rather seek to know Christ, and seek to be known by Him as His child. If you manage that, someone will surely call you Christian.
***
Friday, November 24, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: Repentance is not something we do once; it’s a lifestyle we must adopt and maintain. Stated another way, coming to the Lord does little good if we later fall away from Him. As marriage is about a lifetime, and not merely a wedding, so relationship with the Lord is about walking through life together with Him and not merely making a profession of faith in Him. Let us not be like the Burt Reynolds character in “The End” (1978). This movie character has been diagnosed with a terminal disease and, to avoid the pain it will bring, tries to commit suicide by drowning himself in the ocean. At the last moment, however, he changes his mind and cries out to God for help. He receives an answer to his prayer, but slackens in his commitment as quickly as the danger passes. This 3-minute video clip from near the end of the movie is grainy, but it’s the words that matter most. It’s humorous, but, if properly understood, very sobering as well.
“Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.”
Revelation 2:5
***
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Thanksgiving Day
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the Day: Even today He has prepared for us a table in the presence of our enemies; therefore, let us give Him hearty and repeated thanks for His provision and protection. But as wonderful as life down here can be at times, never forget that this earth is not our home. There is a much finer and more enduring table and feast that await us above. (We won’t have enemies there!) Let us keep our eyes on that prize.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
psalm 23
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness
will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
***
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: There is no reason for children to receive sexual instruction before they reach puberty just as there’s no reason for them to receive driver’s ed before they’re old enough to get a driver’s license. Yet secularism gives political cover for anyone who wants to sexualize children. For example, because an elementary school teacher like this one does not make reference to God or the Bible when she teaches children about sex, she is allowed to normalize what the Bible considers illicit relationships. Yet if public school teachers used rainbows to remind the children of Noah and his family instead of about alternative sexual relationships, they’d be made to stop – one way or the other.
Even at puberty, it’s the parents responsibility – not the school’s – to talk to teenagers about sex. And that talk about sex must center on marriage and child-bearing because those are the purposes of sex. Considering sex, marriage, and child-bearing as three separate subjects is where things get off track. (For a fuller exposition, see my book The Honor of Marriage). We parents may blush, but those who are stripping children of their innocence with perversions like Drag Queen Story Hour in the public library are not blushing.
What can we do? Pray…according to the prayer He gave us.
…deliver us from evil…
matthew 6:13
***
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: This woman is not far from the kingdom of God.
***
Monday, November 20, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: This couple who survived 10/7 in Israel remind me of The Honor of Marriage.
***
Sunday, November 19, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thoughts for Today:
- The Lord has been patient with you. How determined are you to reward His patience?
- It turns out that the one true man is the one true God.
- “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” – G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) (Correspondingly, the tried and true will get us through.) Chesterton is called “the apostle of common sense.” He was, in effect, the C. S. Lewis of his time. Put another way, Lewis (1898-1963) inherited Chesterton’s mantle.
***
Saturday, November 18, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: As no-fault divorce (unilateral divorce on demand) paved the way for same-sex “marriage,” so feminism paved the way for transgenderism. (Every evil opens the door to greater evil.) The only way to stop this chain reaction is to repent; otherwise, things just keep getting worse. If things go on too long without repentance, God brings eventually brings judgment. America is on course for judgment because His calls for her to repent – especially over the last 70 years – have been repeatedly rebuffed.
As for feminism, it is essentially a rejection of the female role designated by God in the creation account (Gen 2:18-24), which is to be a helper to the man. (There’s a lot of meaning in that word “helper.”) Feminism does not want the woman to be a helper to the man; instead, feminism wants the woman to be the same as the man. Both feminists and transgender people want the two sexes to be interchangeable; the only difference is that feminists believe this can be accomplished without changing their bodies.
Feminism seems to have taken deep root in American culture, so much so that it has become hard to imagine hard-core feminists changing their minds. Yet with God all things are possible. Rosaria Butterfield was such a feminist who changed her mind over 20 years ago…and stuck to her new life. Here’s her powerful story (36 min video). You’ll hear her testify that it was reading the Bible over an extended period of time that made the difference. (Never underestimate how much good you’re doing your family by centering your family life around reading the Bible – individually and collectively.)
(As is usual with churchgoers, you just have to mentally translate a few of her words to account for the coming of the kingdom of God – which she does not yet recognize. Specifically, when she says “church,” just think “family.” And when she says “hell” just think “on this earth, in this life,” not “after this life, somewhere else, forever and ever.”)
***
Friday, November 17, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Do not despair, men! Do not let Satan get you down by telling you that you are not doing enough. If you love your wife and your children, and you keep them in the name of the Lord, you are doing well! (In other words, to fulfill the duty of a man is enough.)
***
Thursday, November 16, 2023
- Here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: Whatever is going on in the Middle East these days, it is not fulfillment of biblical prophecy. (This is because, of course, All Bible Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled in Christ). That said, Christ is the king of the nations. He’s the one deciding their respective rises and falls. Therefore, let every nation take heed! Jesus is not a hippy, nor is He a wimp.
“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
psalm 2:7-12
He said to Me,
‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.
‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware.'”
Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.
Do homage to the Son,
that He not become angry, and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
***
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- ICYMI: Ayaan Hirsi Ali created a stir among intellectuals over the weekend by writing Why I Am Now a Christian (10 min read). Her rationale for faith, and her understanding of the object of that faith, are understandably lacking in depth. That said, she’s a smart lady and sounds better grounded than, say, Kanye West was when he announced his conversion to Christianity in 2019. I have to wonder if Ali getting married in 2011 and having two children since had something to with why this globally-famous African-born Muslim who turned against Islam and toward atheism in the wake of 9/11 while in her early 30’s has now turned to Christianity in the wake of 10/7 while in her early 50’s. Some of us just have more distance to travel in getting from where we are to Jesus and the Bible.
***
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- New Essay: The Radical Ambiguity of Secularism
***
Monday, November 13, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Fact to Consider: Once in a while, secular media admits facts which cause us to realize how little truth they’re telling us each day. Take, for example, the truth about “best-seller lists.” Turns out such lists routinely exclude the Bible from their counts. No wonder so many people don’t think the Bible is worthy of discussion. In a rare moment of candor, a mainstay of secular magazines, The New Yorker, let this slip.
The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time obscures a more startling fact: the Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year. Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the United States is a virtually impossible task, but a conservative estimate is that in 2005 Americans purchased some twenty-five million Bibles—twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book. The amount spent annually on Bibles has been put at more than half a billion dollars. – The New Yorker, December 18, 2006
(It’s a good thing this magazine decided to do a hit piece on Bible publishers, otherwise we might not know which book is still outselling them all.)
***
Sunday, November 12, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: You may have an inadequate conception of just how much good you are doing for the Lord in the world simply by fulfilling your proper role in the nuclear family. Modern culture is devoted to deconstructing – that is, destroying – the nuclear family. Satan’s goal is to atomize every family member, putting the individual at the center of consciousness in place of the nuclear family. This destabilizes society by devaluing its fundamental building block, which is the family. Therefore, you are doing great good simply by holding firm to your responsibilities as a father. Encourage your wife to likewise hold firm to her unique role. If the father and mother hold firm to their respective roles in the family, the children have motivation to hold firm to theirs. A human being learns how to function well outside the nuclear family by first learning how to function well within it. You can’t do your children’s parts for them, but you can do your part for them…and that’s a lot! Be – and keep being – a faithful man, husband, and father. It matters. Sometimes success is achieved not by great accomplishments but simply by doing your duty.
***
Saturday, November 11, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: It’s Veterans Day in America. Let us give honor where honor is due (Rom 13:7). It’s not the fault of veterans that America is adrift.
“Greater love has no one than this,
john 15:13
that one lay down his life for his friends.”
***
Friday, November 10, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: Here (1-min video) are two modern men speaking past each other. Neither man understands what he is saying. Nor does the person commenting on the exchange understand what is going on; he simply thinks one man has outsmarted the other. Let us take each man in turn.
1. Vivek is proposing something that is impossible to practice. Christianity and Islam, just to take two examples, are not compatible with each other. To practice one is to violate the other.
2. Cenk states that the US Constitution is secular document, but all you have to do is read it to see that it is not. For one thing, it requires all officers of the government to take an oath (which implies a Supreme Being) to support the Constitution. For another, the document is dated in “in the year of our Lord” 1787. Who was born 1,787 years before the Constitution?
3. “Lepicky” agrees with Cenk who says that the definition of secularism is what Vivek stated he wanted, which was “Whatever your religion is, you have the right to practice it as long as you’re not explicitly harming somebody else.” But if this was the definition of secularism, then the baker would not have had to bake the cake and the florist would not have had to arrange the wedding flowers because no one was being harmed by their religious views since there were competitors eager to do the work.
None of these three men is thinking through what he is saying, much less what their opponents are saying. Secularism as currently practiced in America eviscerates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. That is, our government protects freedom from religion, not freedom of religion – which means that our government enforces the very opposite of what the Constitution promises. Today’s secularists are both ignorant and confident – a toxic combination.
***
Thursday, November 9, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Current Events: Notice in 1 Kings 22 how the government official works behind the scenes to censor the prophet Micaiah by insisting that he speak only what is consistent with the prevailing institutional narrative. Notice also how Micaiah risks continuing imprisonment by speaking what the vast majority of his peers consider to be false prophecy (misinformation, disinformation) – yet Micaiah turned out to be the only prophet who spoke honestly and truly that day.
Truth is not determined by how many people speak it. We live in a time of many liars and many lies; whenever you find the truth, cling to it!
“Enter through the narrow gate;
Jesus in matthew 7:13-14
for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction,
and there are many who enter through it.
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life,
and there are few who find it.”
Following Jesus Christ and the Bible is not popular in America these days. That’s why few are doing it.
***
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Bible Reading Tip: There’s only one textbook for Christianity. It stands to reason therefore that no matter what “grade level” you’re at, some parts of it are going to be harder to understand than others. If there weren’t parts of the Bible we didn’t understand, it would only mean the Lord doesn’t have very much to teach us.
***
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Jesus chose apostles to represent Him in the earth. They deserve our attention. The only writings we have from them are in the New Testament. Of all the people who have ever spoken in Jesus’ name – whether in the past or the present – no one deserves to be heard more, or even as much as, the apostles who laid down their lives for Him and for us. They are the greatest men of the greatest generation of all.
***
Monday, November 6, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today:
…[T]he eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His…
2 Chronicles 16:9
What a promise!
***
Sunday, November 5, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for the last few days: Since Thursday, I’ve been hammering the point that without the Bible we’re going to be pulled out to sea by the moral undertow – that is, we’re going to be without an objective standard of righteousness. Without that objective standard, we have no way to calibrate our consciences and so we’ll just each end up doing what’s right in our own eyes. You can see first hand when you read the news the wreckage this absence of a divine standard brings on any society. To conclude the point, I want to show you how William Wilberforce saw the same problem…and how he dealt with it.
Recall that William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was the English statesman and member of Parliament whom God used (along with others) to persuade England to abolish the slave trade. (If America had had such a man, perhaps the horror of our civil war could have been avoided.) If you’ve seen the 2006 movie Amazing Grace which tells the story of Wilberforce’s long-sought and hard-fought victory over English minds, you’d think that he achieved his goal by solely by informing Parliament and the public of the brutal treatment slaves received in their transport by ship from Africa to other locations in the world. That was indeed part of his campaign, but more important was the book he wrote about the practice of Christianity in England.
Wilberforce began lobbying Parliament to abolish the slave trade in the mid-1780’s. He kept bringing the issue to a vote…but kept falling short of the votes needed to pass the legislation. This went on for more than ten years. Finally, in 1797, he published a book that became something of a best seller. In the style of that time, the title was long but helpfully descriptive: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. A modern English paraphrase of the book was published in conjunction with the movie’s release, titled simply Real Christianity. Wilberforce’s point was that while England was known as a Christian nation, it was only so in a superficial way – the people, especially the upper and middle classes, were not practicing the way of life that Jesus taught in the Bible.
In the book, Wilberforce made the point that I’ve been hammering here about the importance of the Bible in calibrating our consciences to the Bible. Without this calibration, Wilberforce and his allies could have paraded all the mistreated slaves in front of the public forever to no avail. In 1807, ten years after publication of the book – that is, after ten years of the book spreading into England the way leaven spreads into a lump of dough – Parliament finally had the votes to abolish the slave trade. Human consciences are hard, self-serving, and subjective until and unless they are softened and cleansed by the word of God. In the paraphrased version of his book, Wilberforce emphasized the importance of the Bible in the following way (I put in bold print his explicit references to the Bible):
What we believe determines how we live. Men who sincerely believed that what they were doing was right have perpetrated many of the most hideous crimes against humanity…Almost all people believe they are living good and moral lives. Yet they measure their lives against some subjective criteria without realizing that vice is often the product of ignorance or error. Such people often lack the ability to distinguish right from wrong or truth from error.
This is one reason why the diligent study of the Bible is so important. It is here that God has given us the instruction we need to be able to tell right from wrong and truth from error. Without understanding its principles and precepts, we become victims of our own subjectivity. How profitable is subjectivity if our conscience has been seared, our heart hardened, and our mind blinded to all moral distinctions?
An authentic faith requires an honesty of mind, the consistent use of the means of knowledge and instruction, the humility that fosters a desire to be instructed, and an unprejudiced conclusion about what this inquiry reveals. If we approach the study of the Bible this way, God fulfills His promises. If we seek and keep on seeking, we will find; if we ask and keep on asking, we will receive; if we knock and keep on knocking, the door to truth will be opened. How can we refuse an offer like this?
American society in the 21st century is in a worst spiritual state than English society was in the time of Wilberforce. Just as we incurred a Civil War over slavery that England was able to avoid, it appears that we are going to suffer judgment for clinging to abortion (and the many other immoralities that accompany it) that we could have avoided. Therefore, cling to the Bible even harder…and keep your hope in the promises within it, promises like this:
Seek the Lord,
zephaniah 2:3
All you humble of the earth
Who have carried out His ordinances;
Seek righteousness, seek humility.
Perhaps you will be hidden
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
***
Saturday, November 4, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: America today is like Israel in the time of the Judges – that is, every man doing what’s right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). That’s why such terrible things are happening. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that Russia became communist for 70 years because the Russians forgot God. That’s our fate now. It’ll be called something else, but it’s communism just the same – one-party rule in a godless state. We’ve no one to blame but ourselves. Yet the Lord is with those who are with Him. Keep yourself and your family turned toward the Lord and you will survive all that is to come. For you and your family to succeed at this, you have to cling tightly to the Bible – believe and obey it every day. Without the Bible, you’ll just be doing what’s right in your own eyes. And that’s what got us into this mess.
***
Friday, November 3, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Further to yesterday’s thought for the day, recall how the Jewish tax collector Zaccheus had his conscience overhauled by his awareness of, and encounter with, Jesus (Luke 19:1-10). Zaccheus’s conscience had let him overcharge and take advantage of people for years. What changed his worldview, and therefore his behavior, was being confronted with Jesus. Likewise, we go to the Bible every morning so that we might be confronted anew by Jesus…so that our consciences can be made more like His.
We can try to make people see the harm that their bad ideas (transgenderism, critical race theory, etc.) bring about, but their hearts are so hardened that they’ll just keep finding ways to justify themselves and their bad ideas. It is only by encountering Jesus that a human being can truly come to his senses.
And if we ourselves stop looking to Jesus every day, we’ll just fall back into the bad mental habits that got us into trouble in the first place.
Prov 19:27 Cease listening, my son, to discipline,
And you will stray from the words of knowledge.
2 Pet 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
2 Pet 2:21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.
2 Pet 2:22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
***
Thursday, November 2, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: You are doing yourself and your family so much good today by turning to the word of God to feed your souls. You are “putting food on the table” as is your responsibility of the man in a family – spiritually as well as physically. You are giving yourself and your family a chance to do right this day by reminding yourselves of God’s unchanging standard, Jesus Christ.
Most men and families are just doing what seems right in their own eyes. Do not those who commit war crimes think they are doing right? Do not those who abort their babies think they are doing right? Did not those who killed Jesus think they were serving God and helping their fellow citizens? Evildoers routinely feel justified in doing what they’re doing. That’s why they ignore Jesus Christ – because they do not want an objective standard against which their lives can be measured. But you have seen the light! You know that it is folly to think that a conscience not subjected to the word of God is going to consistently be able to give the right answers to the moral dilemmas – large and small – that are coming at us every day.
Rejoice that you and your family are coming to the Lord and His word every day to have your consciences healed from the bumps and bruises of the previous day. You have a much better chance to do right today that you would have otherwise.
***
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: What can we do when we see the world falling apart?
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Psalm 37:3
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
***
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: I hate Halloween and love the Bible in the same way that I hate darkness and love the light.
***
Monday, October 30, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thoughts for Today:
- If current trends hold, there will be as many Muslims in the world as Christians by 2050 – which is only 27 years from now. (Pew Research)
- When I was a boy, Halloween was for kids. In my lifetime, it has been transformed into something for adults. This is consistent with so many other things in life – that adults simply don’t care about children as much as they used to. Adults have fewer children, and they care less about the ones they do have. Why? Because these adults care too much about themselves to have any time left over to think about children. How will these adults feel in heaven, in whatever part of it they are situated, when they see what happens to the generations they have left to the wolves on earth?
- The well-being of your children after you’re gone will not be determined by societal trends. It will be determined by your trends. Love Jesus and feed on the Bible, teaching your children to do the same. Then you’ll have things to cheer about when the time comes for you to watch them from heaven.
***
Sunday, October 29, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Never underestimate the good you do for yourself and your family when you go to the table of the Lord at the beginning of every day to partake of the food He has provided to feed your soul – that table being the Bible. Those who do not come regularly to this table slowly starve themselves to spiritual death…and those who do not work off the calories they ingest (that is, act on what they read each day) grow fat, lazy, and proud.
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'”
Matthew 4:4
Jesus Christ is the mouth of God. (This is a paraphrase of John 1:1.)
***
Saturday, October 28, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is considered one of the greatest authors of all time. Long before the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, he began one of his classic novels with this sentence: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” How prophetic he was! If the truth of his statement wasn’t clear enough in the 1870’s when he wrote it, it became crystal clear in the 1960’s when deviations from the biblical pattern for marriage began to be normalized. Single parent, two fathers, two mothers, three parents – the variety became endless as modern society decided that “a family is a family is a family” – and that a mother and father was just too conformist for enlightened people. Indeed, secular morals for marriage have demonstrated that, consistent with Tolstoy’s observation, family misery is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid!) “…A man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” Gen 2:24
***
Friday, October 27, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thoughts for Today:
- Further to what I wrote yesterday about the Middle East, this 3-minute video shows members of Congress declaring their belief that the biblical prophecies of Jesus’ return 1) have not yet been fulfilled, and 2) that they will be fulfilled only through the success of modern Israel. These lawmakers are not religious extremists; they’ve just been taught the wrong thing about the Second Coming. I commend them for their God-fearing attitude and their faith in Christ. The solution is not to secularize their political work, but rather to give them a more accurate understanding of the Scriptures…just as Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos (Acts 18:24-28).
- It is a sign of America’s deep decline that a quality candidate for president like Larry Elder has to suspend his campaign. If, with all the things that are going wrong with the country, a candidacy like Larry’s could not attract even enough support to get him on the debate stages, what hope is there for a political solution to America’s problems? To be specific about Elder’s quality as a candidate, notice that even in his announcement he continues hammering what was his campaign’s major theme: that fatherlessness is America’s biggest problem. It’s hard for a politician in a secular nation at this present hour to get much closer to God’s heart than that. (“He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” – Malachi 4:6)
***
Thursday, October 26, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: There is currently a lot of tension in the world, including here in America, about the situation in the Middle East. Sadly, most people are giving in to tribalistic and emotional urges instead of thinking clearly and making wise decisions. People seem to be either pro-Israel no matter what the Israelis do, or they are pro-Palestinian no matter what the Palestinians do. Under Christ, all nations should be held to the same standards whether it be Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Russians, Chinese, or whoever.
There are Christians in America who believe that modern Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and therefore that America must defend Israel indiscriminately. But modern Israel is not the work of God like ancient Israel was because all Bible prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Therefore, America’s relationship with Israel should be determined by all the same factors that determine our relationships with every other nation. I am not trying to tell you what America’s position regarding Israel or Palestine should be; I’m only saying that biblical principles – rather than biblical prophecy – should be guiding our decision making. I will say this: raping women and killing innocents is despicably evil no matter which nation does it. That said, this does not mean that anything and everything Israel or America decide to do in response to these atrocities is automatically justified.
The way forward is fraught with danger for the entire world, and we need for wisdom to prevail. It is the clear responsibility of Israel’s government to act on behalf of its citizens given the atrocities, but to think that the atrocities justify any and all actions the Israelis might decide to take is the same sort of thinking that has others thinking the atrocities should be overlooked because of all the Palestinians have been through. Jesus Christ is not a judge who shows partiality. No nation is exceptional enough to get a different set of rules from Him.
***
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thoughts for Today:
- There’s an old hymn titled “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” Jesus Christ is the tie that binds. He can bind a marriage, a family, even a nation. But if He is rejected, then the marriage, the family, even the nation…comes apart.
- The New Testament is the written testimony of eight men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter and Jude. They put their lives on the line for sake of the world. They were “costly stones” with which the temple of the Lord was built; they were “men of whom the world was not worthy.” They came from the greatest generation of all.
- Each day presents us a fresh opportunity to be either the beauty or the beast.
- “…He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation” – Psalm 149:4
- “Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, Is like the beasts that perish.” Psalm 49:20
***
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: The 7th-century prophet Zephaniah lived in a time like ours. He said,
“Seek the LORD,
All you humble of the earth
Who have carried out His ordinances;
Seek righteousness, seek humility.
Perhaps you will be hidden
In the day of the LORD’S anger.”
Therefore, men, follow Zephaniah’s direction regarding you and your family. There is hardly any fear of God in the land. Be different…and you’ll thereby find reason to believe that the Lord will hide you and your family in the palm of His hand during the day of His anger.
***
Monday, October 23, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: How can a man who declares that Jesus is taking everyone to heaven also be pleading with men to repent? I have never seen any disconnect between these two things. If you do, then ponder this: Why didn’t Jesus just die peacefully in His sleep before His resurrection from the dead instead of submitting to the torture and humiliation of a crucifixion?
***
Sunday, October 22, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: In Colossians 1:17, the apostle Paul says of Christ, “in Him all things hold together.” This is why America and the world are currently falling apart – because neither America nor the world are holding on to Him. When asked in an interview this past week if two wars were more than America could take on at this time, our president said this:
“No. We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history– not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world.”
I cringed when I heard this. First of all, that’s using the Lord’s name in vain. Second, “pride goeth before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Even if we could take on two wars at this time, that’s no way to be talking about it. The darkness of secularism shrouds our culture. Even when when God’s name is on our lips, there’s no sign that He is dear to our hearts (Mark 7:6).
After World War II, General Douglas MacArthur requested that the American people send 10,000 Christian missionaries for the conversion of Japan (New York Times, April 7, 1964). Here in 2023, it’s America that’s in need of 10,000 Christian missionaries!
***
Saturday, October 21, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.” This is the state we’ve reach in modern America and the western world. Do not let this attitude infect your mind or your family’s minds! Our every act will be brought to judgment, whether during our life or once it ends. The longer things go without widespread repentance on earth, the worse things are going to be down here when the day of national reckoning for America finally comes. Be diligent to be found doing your duty on that day, as this will bring salvation to you and yours. You will not be forgotten.
***
Friday, October 20, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: One of the most surprising and disheartening aspects of modern American life is that we do not see signs of widespread repentance from sin. You would think that America’s ever-increasing problems would be a wake-up call and that people would recognize that we are experiencing the bitter fruit of wandering farther and farther away from the devotion to God and the Bible that was present at our nation’s founding. Alas, it appears that things are going to have to get a lot worse before people are willing to humble themselves before our Creator-Redeemer. Keep your seat belt fastened!
AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?
1 Peter 4:18 (quoting Proverbs 11:31)
***
Thursday, October 19, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: American society has been afflicted with “societal Alzheimer’s.” That is, we’ve forgotten history. When a nation forgets its history, it is just like a man who has lost his memory. For example, our government was founded to secure “unalienable rights” that are “endowed” by a “Creator,” but political America in the 21st-century has forgotten all that and instead protects only man-made rights…and views of the Creator are not even allowed in the discussion.
The prognosis of a nation with societal Alzheimer’s is just as dismal as the prognosis of a man with Alzheimer’s. The Duty of a Man tells you how to inoculate yourself and your family against the ravages of this social disease. For the man who has Alzheimer’s, the only lasting hope is life after death in heaven; and for the nation with societal Alzheimer’s there is likewise the hope of life after America on earth. We do not yet see what that life will look like, but when we do, we will know that the Lord Jesus is the one true God who mercifully granted it to us. Cling to Jesus Christ and the Bible – unchanging truth!
***
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Oh, to be as free as a bird! Yet this is what Jesus promises to those to follow His teaching, for He says, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32). But a bird is not free to swim under water like a fish; nor is a bird free to burrow under the ground like a mole. What then is a bird free to do? What it was designed to do, which is to fly…wherever it wants. Likewise, we are free to do righteousness…wherever we want. Jesus does not set us free to do unrighteousness (which is selfishness) because we were not designed for it.
***
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: Don’t let the Bible become an idol. We worship Jesus Christ; the Bible is the textbook He uses to teach us about Himself. The Bible is the treasure map; Jesus is the treasure. Jesus was a man, but He is God.
***
Monday, October 16, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: When a righteous man wakes up in the morning, he gets out of bed to read the red. That is, he wants his daily portion of righteousness, and for this reason he feeds himself, as he does every day, with the bread of life Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord, as found in the Bible. Unless we eat His flesh (that is, study His life) and drink His blood (that is, study His death) we will faint from lack of strength in this unrighteous world in which we find ourselves. Jesus’ life and death cannot be consumed in one day because He is too great a feast of righteousness for that. We must partake of His righteousness every day throughout our lifetimes. And even that won’t be enough time to consume it all. We’ll be feeding on His righteousness for all eternity. And so as for today, “O Lord, show me how to do what is right this day, for I love the exhilaration I feel in my soul when I do what is right in Your sight.”
***
Sunday, October 15, 2023
- If you’ve landed on this page because you just completed The Duty of a Man and you are not yet sure of your faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: The prophets (OT) said, “He’s coming!” The apostles (NT) said, “He’s coming again!” We who live today say, “He has come!”
***
Saturday, October 14, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: What distinguishes Western Civilization from the rest of the world? It is historically Christian. Yet Christianity has been giving ground to secularism in the West for generations, to the point that secularism now dominates it. Each generation was supposed to grow in Christ; instead, somewhere along the way, each generation shrank in Christ. What can any individual man do about this? He cannot do much at all about Western Civilization; but he can do a lot about his tiny little corner of it. In fact, you and I will have to give an account to our Creator-Redeemer when we die for how we have handled our respective little corners of the world. Let’s you and I so live that when that day comes, we won’t have to hang our heads in shame. That is, let us teach our respective families to follow Jesus Christ and the Bible as we do. This is our duty, because it is the duty of a man.
“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
JoshUA 24:15
Friday, October 13, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: When you look at this link, I don’t want you to focus on the current hostilities between Israel and Hamas. Rather, I want you to focus on the broader issue of how teaching children shapes societies – whether it be Palestinian society or Israeli society or any society. Think, for example, of how this applies in America – that is, what is being taught to children and who is teaching it. Think particularly of how American children are being taught to think racially and sexually instead of righteously. As Abraham Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” We can see that truth playing out right here in our own country right before our eyes. This is why I wrote The Duty of a Man: to exhort men to teach Jesus Christ and the Bible to their children. This is the purpose of the kingdom of God on earth. Nations in general have been failing at this task, and this is why the world is collapsing around us. But if we men, in all nations, will repent and fulfill our calling, things will get better. Blessings come on obedience; curses remain on disobedience. Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and the Bible is His word! He will save us – He will save us all if we will only teach Him.
“Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
jesus christ (Mark 10:14)
***
Thursday, October 12, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good personal foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible before reading along with the rest of us.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: I wonder if you realize just how much good you are doing for yourself, and for your family, when you return to the Bible day after day after day. The undertow at the beach is relentless and it will never stop pulling at you, but if you have a landmark, a fixed point of reference, against which you can periodically check your position, then you can keep coming back to where you belong. Jesus Christ lived a life of pure righteousness. He is therefore a worthy standard – a fixed point of reference – to which we can return day after day after day. Those who do not keep returning daily to a fixed point of reference are destined to be pulled down the beach and out to sea. Do not doubt this!
Cease listening, my son, to discipline,
Proverbs 19:27
And you will stray from the words of knowledge.
***
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today:
- To be antisemitic is to be antichrist because Christ was a Jew. He came to break down all racial and ethnic barriers. To despise Jews – or any other race or ethnicity – is to dishonor God…for He made us all.
- You do not have to agree with every single thing the nation, government, or citizens of Israel do in order to avoid being antisemitic. They are to be judged – as America is to be judged – just like any other nation. All nations have to give an account of themselves to the King of the Nations. He is not partial in His judgments.
- It is not antisemitic to care about innocent civilians in Gaza and thereby value Arab lives as highly as Jewish lives. Of course, it’s not easy to protect innocents when the evildoers use the innocents as shields. But just because a principle is difficult to practice doesn’t mean we should abandon the principle. Israel’s war on Hamas should be as short as possible, but to immediately sue for peace and inflict no retribution on Hamas for its atrocities is to invite more atrocities. When Jesus said we should turn the other cheek and walk an extra mile, He was saying, as America’s founders did in the Declaration of Independence, that it is good to overlook “light and transient” provocations. Beyond that, however, Jesus and the founders agree that a nation doesn’t just have a right, but also a duty, to protect its citizens – especially its women and children.
- When one side in a war is raping women and the other side is not, you have to take a side. You cannot be neutral. To justify rape is as bad as committing it because it makes you complicit in future rapes. The entire world should be united in condemning the brutal and animal-like behavior that was on display Saturday, October 7, 2023. That the world – including America – is by no means united on this point is a sign of the deep depravity of our supposedly modern age.
***
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: The God of the Jews and the God of the Christians is one God, and He is the one true God of the whole world. Every human being is His child, every human being will be raised from the dead, and every human being is going to heaven. Every nation is a Christian nation, for God Himself died on a cross to purchase them all. Many nations are resisting that identity, yes, but that doesn’t change their identity. Reality can be denied, but that doesn’t make it any less real. A child who hates his father is nonetheless a child of the father. God turned death from a curse into a blessing of reconciliation with Himself. The one true God is a God of righteousness. He judges us fairly…both on earth and when we go to heaven. The purpose of our final judgment in heaven is to make right any and all matters not fully made right on earth. For this reason, Jesus was exalted to the heights of heaven (as you may have noticed how shabbily He was treated on earth). And though none of us will be raised that high, we will be raised according to our respective worth on earth. No one is getting away with anything! Let the whole world lose its mind but you keep living like you’re going to get a report card…because everyone is.
***
Monday, October 9, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights. This will give you a good foundation in Jesus Christ and the Bible.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to the reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: 21st-century America is like Israel in the time of the judges – that is, “every man doing what is right in his own eyes because there was no king” (Judges 21:25). By contrast, America at its founding had a king in heaven, and He was acknowledged in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If you doubt this, read God in America’s Founding Documents or even the documents themselves. Those documents, however, are routinely ignored today – receiving only lip service, and only on occasion at that. For example, the first amendment to the Constitution guarantees to every citizen the God-given right to the free exercise of religion, yet Barronelle Stutzman (the florist) and Jack Phillips (the cakebaker) have been famously denied the freedom to practice their religion. Man-made rights have been elevated above God-given rights. In fact, in the 21st century you cannot succeed in arguing for God-given rights in the courts because the courts won’t recognize them. This is why Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) had to argue for Barronelle and Jack on the basis of their creative freedom, not their religious freedom. This is the result of “men doing what is right in their own eyes.” When Jesus Christ and the Bible ceased to be recognized as supremely authoritative in America, our descent into madness began.
***
Sunday, October 8, 2023
- If you do not yet have faith in Jesus Christ, or if you have never read the Bible according to a Bible reading plan (BRP), please spend the next 40 days reading according to Your First Forty Days and Nights.
- For everyone else, here are today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to reading companions (the written and audio are not identical):
- Thought for Today: God pays no attention to identity politics. He looks right past whatever labels we apply to ourselves. He pays no more attention to the color of our skin than to the color of our hair or eyes. He sees us as male or female and nothing we or “science” ever does can change that. (Once we get to heaven, we’ll cease to be male or female because we’ll be like angels…but that will be His handiwork, not ours.) He sees all of us as His children, for that is the purpose for which He became one of us: to restore us to Himself and make us one with Him. He doesn’t even divide us into Christian and non-Christian because all He sees is His children – every one bought and paid for with His blood. He does notice whether we’re individually obedient or disobedient, but that status can change by the day, by the hour, or even by the minute. Let us each seek to be an obedient child in the present, for the past cannot be undone and the future cannot yet be done. It’s in the now that we can experience the peace of Jesus Christ in our souls by doing what is right in His sight.
***
Saturday, October 7, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Focus on the family! God has been saying this for some time but our nation is not listening. Instead, America has re-defined “family”…just as it has redefined “marriage”…just as it has even redefined “male” and “female.” We have entered the last stages of a long decline. America was blessed in the 18th century because she appealed to the Creator. And she was blessed in the 19th century because she ended slavery. But in the 20th century she became proud and shoved God out of public life. Thus the 21st century is marking the end of what began so well in the 18th. The greatest rise of a nation is turning into the greatest fall. America was born fearing the Lord, and she is dying by rejecting Him. Therefore, focus on the family. Every American institution including the church is failing. These institutions cannot and will not save us because they are only intent on saving themselves and their leaders. Everyone is going to heaven, but too many of us are living the kind of lives that bring more hell on the earth. Being repentant brings forgiveness and blessing; being unrepentant brings judgment and wrath. Batten down the hatches! Brace for impact! Put your family on the ark and seal it. Celebrate the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread every single day. (When you read of Jesus in the Bible with your family you are partaking of true unleavened bread – the “Bread of Life.”) Do not fear! The Lord Jesus Christ sees you and yours. Believe what He promises and do what He commands. You will be protected in the days of judgment on earth and have seats of honor in heaven.
“It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant
Acts 3:25-26
which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham,
‘AND IN YOUR SEED
ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH
SHALL BE BLESSED.’
For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”
***
Friday, October 6, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- The Protestant Reformation began when a Roman Catholic priest in Germany named Martin Luther declared that the Bible had greater authority than the church. Many people followed him. And a number of men – such as John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Knox – followed Luther’s example without following him. That is, they, too, declared that the Bible had greater authority than the church. Many people followed these individuals who were all going in their individual directions but in the same general direction. Over time, the followers of each man formed their own churches…and, as a result, there came to be many Christian denominations – Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, and so on. At this point, the Protestant Reformation lost steam because each denomination in its own way became corrupted with power the same way that the Roman Catholic Church had been corrupted with power. What needed to happen – and what still needs to happen – is that people need to stop trying to reform the church. Instead, each man needs to lead his own family. This is what the kingdom of God entails – a return to the creation order, with Jesus as the head. This was more difficult to achieve in the 16th century when literacy was low and Bibles were in Latin and inaccessible. In our time, literacy rates are high and Bibles in common languages can be found everywhere. Martin Luther and his contemporaries lacked the conditions to go the full distance that their convictions were leading them. They surely expect us to finish what they started. Men, lead your families in Jesus Christ and the Bible! The church is obsolete; the family is not.
***
Thursday, October 5, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Was the Protestant Reformation from heaven or from men? (You may recognize that I’m employing the logical framework of Mark 11:27-33.) If the Protestant Reformation was launched not by words from God but rather by the minds of men, then let us put our Bibles away, start going to mass, and stop ignoring the pope. (Of course, if you weren’t Roman Catholic like I was, it would mean going back to whatever religion you knew before you started reading the Bible for yourself.)
***
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- There is no ancient text about which historians can be more confident of its contents than the Bible – not those of Homer, not those of Plato, not those of Aristotle, not those of Herodotus, not those of Thucydides, not those Plutarch, not those of anyone! Whether people believe and live according to the Bible’s contents are an entirely different matter. In other words, people can argue about what the Bible means, but no one can reasonably argue about what it says. Anyone who can read can know what it says. People who tell you that we cannot be sure of what the Bible’s authors originally said are either lying or else they have been deluded by someone else’s lie.
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- “It’s true: Jesus Christ, the Bible – all of it, it’s all true.” (That is, they are reality – not the mere product of someone’s imagination.)
***
Monday, October 2, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- The law of Moses (found in the Old Testament) was obviously intended to be temporary, while the law of Jesus (found in the New Testament) is timeless. I say “obvious” because just as “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing” is clearly a commandment with a limited shelf life, “love one another even as I have loved you” is just as clearly timeless. Why then didn’t God just go ahead give us the permanent law to start with instead of a temporary one? Because we first had to learn what “as I have loved you” looked like before we could adequately understand what the eternal commandment meant.
***
Sunday, October 1, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Those of you who are reading the Bible every day, let me ask you a question: Which has done you more good – being baptized in water or being baptized in the Bible?
- Baptism in water was already being de-emphasized once Gentiles were invited to join the Jewish faith in Messiah. Read the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth and see the way Paul speaks of it, especially when comparing its importance to that of preaching the gospel (1 Cor 1:13-17). John the Baptist himself had prophesied the eventual obsolescence of water baptism when he said that he baptized in water but that Messiah would baptize in the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8). The Bible is the work of the Holy Spirit – that is, the prophets (OT) and the apostles (NT) were motivated by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote. Being baptized in the Bible is therefore our foundational way of being baptized in Spirit. Through the word of God we can know His will and do it. That’s how we get real traction in life – not by getting dunked or doused in water. Be a spiritual man, not a soggy secular man.
- Through this website I am baptizing you in the Bible.
***
Saturday, September 30, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Any human being capable of reading is capable of reading and understanding the Bible. Sure, some things in it are harder to understand than others. And, sure, you may need some help getting off the ground in your Bible reading – which is the help I’m here to provide. But I am replaceable – the one true God is not! Get to know Him. That’s the whole ballgame! You get to know the Lord through His word, and you find His word in the Bible. And you find His word in the Bible by reading it. (Oh, and don’t forget to do it! Otherwise, the reading is useless.)
***
Friday, September 29, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- He who sits down to read the Bible sits down to a feast for the soul.
***
Thursday, September 28, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Transgenderism Is a Lie (25 min) – Many of its proponents – especially the younger ones – are deluded by this lie. Deluded proponents are not intentionally lying – but it’s a lie nonetheless. It’s unfair that our children are being confronted with this insanity, but we cannot stick our heads in the sand about it.
***
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- In ancient times, Satan incited Pharaoh to order the murder of infant Hebrew males. He also incited Herod to murder male infants born in Bethlehem at the time of Messiah. In modern times, he has used feminism to incite women to murder both male and female children in their wombs. More subtly, he has used feminism to urge women to postpone having children in order to first establish themselves in their careers so that they won’t be dependent on a man. Satan does this because he knows that the longer women postpone childbearing, the less likely they will be able to conceive. Why does the devil hate children so much? Because God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…” (Gen 1:28). There’s nothing creative about the evil one; he’s all about destruction.
- Someone will invariably ask, “But what happens when the earth is filled?” What do you think all those other planets are for?
***
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to commentary (the written and audio are not identical):
- Before C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), there was G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). Both of these men would recognize the nobility of what you are doing every day by leading your family in Jesus Christ and the Bible.
- “The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” – G. K. Chesterton
- Before Chesterton, there was the Bible.
- For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
and be joined to his wife;
and they shall become one flesh.
– Genesis 2:24
- For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
- Therefore, men, finished what you’ve started.
- But the noble man
devises noble plans;
And by noble plans
he stands.
– Isaiah 32:8
- But the noble man
***
Monday, September 25, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, Jesus of Nazareth proved that one man can make a difference. All we have to do is imitate Him, and we’ll make a difference, too.
***
Sunday, September 24, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, I have not read this book and I do not know the author, but I 100% support what the title exhorts us to do: Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. And I greatly appreciate that there are publishers willing to bring such books to market.
- I also came across this commendable quote: “The GOP must not be the party of big business or big government, but of big families.” – Tom Cotton, junior US Senator from Arkansas. Pretty good for a politician.
- Did you know that dogs have become more popular with adults than children? Here are a couple of sobering factoids:
- There are currently more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M).
- Over 38% of households have at least one dog. Only 30% of households have at least one child.
- And, to go along with that societal “development,” there’s this:
- In 1970, there were 67% prime-aged Americans were married w/ kids.
- In 2021, there were only 37% prime-aged Americans married w/ kids.
- Let us therefore thank God for outliers!
- Be a leader, not a follower.
- Be fisherman, not a fish.
- Be an example, not a statistic.
***
Saturday, September 23, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, here is an article (6 min read) written by a 23-year-old woman after her first year of marriage: “5 Benefits Of Marrying Long Before You Own A House And Establish A Successful Career” at The Federalist, September 21, 2023. It’s well-reasoned and well-written. Of course, you know from the title that her view is countercultural – but it didn’t used to be! My wife and I married when we were 20-year-olds in 1972. For context, my father had always insisted that my brothers and I graduate from college before getting married; therefore, I scheduled my course work aggressively and was able to walk down the aisle to exchange rings seven days after I had walked across the stage to receive my diploma. We were able to work and save money in the first couple of married years so that we could afford to start having children when we were 22. Marrying at 20 was the best decision I’ve ever made in life. Of course, there is much more to a good marriage than marrying young, but the current societal view of postponing marriage until one’s 30’s or 40’s is bad advice.
***
Friday, September 22, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, where is Christ being preached today? I look everywhere and I have a hard time finding it. Even those who claim to represent Him – churches and televangelists – say very little about Him and His teachings. Instead, they speak of themselves and their projects – which require your money to support. This is why I point you to the Bible. Go there to find Jesus and His teaching – that is, go directly to the source! Every church and every televangelist claims the Bible as their authority – so why should they complain if you go directly to that authority? Are they saying you have to go through them to get to God? “But, Mike, aren’t you doing the same thing?” Judge for yourself. I’m happy for you to drop me as soon as my help is no longer useful to you. What matters is you and your relationship with the Lord. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
***
Thursday, September 21, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, neither you nor your family have to be Bible scholars in order to read the Bible. All you have to do is be able to read. And you don’t have to understand everything you read. All you have to understand is enough to have marching orders for the day. Don’t let yourselves be overwhelmed – “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Just read the assignments above for however long you’ve allocated, and do so with all your heart. Pray about it, and then take on the day with full awareness of Jesus’ love for you…and the example He left you.
***
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, we must bring the word of our Creator and Redeemer into our hearts and into our homes. Television is not doing it. Movies are not doing it. Politics are not doing it. Who is going to bring the word of God into our hearts and homes if we don’t? Shall we delegate our duty to our wives or to churches and their pastors? How well is that working for those who have taken that course? Society has collapsed into madness – not merely killing children in the womb, but now mutilating and sterilizing the bodies of the ones who are born before they reach adulthood. Are we who are reading the Bible and trying to do what Jesus says the radical ones – the ones who have lost their minds? This is a life-or-death struggle. Shall we use the fact that everyone is going to heaven as an excuse to eat, drink, and be merry while children are being chopped up and sacrificed to the false gods of secular ideologies? Let us rather give thanks for our salvation and live holy according to the word of the One who secured our salvation with His blood. You and I are not responsible for the whole world, but we are responsible for ourselves and our houses.
“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
joshua 24:15
***
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Men, you and I walk in the footsteps of Adam and Abraham when we read the Bible with our wives and children. Those two men were charged with remembering the word of God spoken to them and communicating it to their families. The words of God they each received were very few compared to what we’ve been given – so few that those words were not given them in writing. We, on the other hand, have been given a printed and bound volume of over 700,000 words! Today, America is experiencing a famine for the word of God because secularism has driven it out of people’s minds, but you and I are putting food on the table every day…as is our duty.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
Psalm 33:18-19
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
***
Monday, September 18, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- We can base our faith in Jesus fully on the historical bedrock of the New Testament, those 27 texts being the primary historical sources for his earthly life. While those texts are, of course, religious in nature, their value as primary historical sources stand up as well or better than any other ancient texts when reasonable standards of historical research are applied. What this means is that, although the New Testament is the word of God, a person does not need to regard it as such in order use it as the foundation of his faith in Christ. The New Testament informs us about Jesus the man according to the testimony of men. In other words, a person can come to faith in Jesus and God by strictly secular means…as long as he’s willing to be honest and reasonable. The only way the New Testament can fail to persuade someone about Jesus is when the person doesn’t read it honestly and reasonably or else doesn’t read it at all. Therefore, when someone asks “Does God exist?” your best answer is “Does the New Testament exist?”
***
Sunday, September 17, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- There is an occupational hazard associated with being a daily Bible reader. It is the temptation to become biblical without becoming spiritual – that is, to become more knowledgeable about what God has said without becoming more obedient to Him. To be on guard against this trap, there is a question we can regularly ask ourselves: Do I measure my righteousness by comparison to Jesus or by comparison to others? The one way of measuring leads to humility, the other to pride.
***
Saturday, September 16, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- There is “a still small voice” speaking to all 7 billion of us this morning. How many of us will quiet our hearts enough to hear it?
***
Friday, September 15, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- God is our Creator-Redeemer. That is, He created us and then, when we sinned, He redeemed us from our sins by dying on the cross. Because He both created us and redeemed us, He has a double claim on our lives. Secularism makes us forget both these claims by fostering a radical conception of human autonomy – that is, it assumes we don’t need a Creator-Redeemer for every single breath we take. Taken to its logical conclusion, such radical human autonomy leads people to think they can be their own creator-redeemers, and this is how Frankensteinian ideas like transgenderism and transhumanism take root in a culture.
***
Thursday, September 14, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- During the days of His earthly existence, Jesus was usually addressed as “Lord” or “Teacher.” Over two billion people on the earth today acknowledge Him as Lord, but how many of them engage with Him as teacher? If you are not experiencing Jesus as your teacher, you are really missing out! If you are engaging Him as teacher, what has He taught you so far in life? What is He teaching you today? What kind of grade is He giving you?
***
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Here is the first amendment to the US Constitution, which is the first right in the Bill of Rights (bold print added):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The ideologies of critical race theory and LGBT etc. violate the first amendment in two ways: 1) They have been enacted by the executive and judicial branches of government rather than the legislative branch (Congress), and 2) they tread on the free exercise of religion because they contradict the Bible, not to mention other religions. Thus the enforcement of critical race theory (e.g. diversity, equity, and inclusion) and LGBT etc. ideology are clearly unconstitutional and can be rejected for that reason alone.
***
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The challenge we face daily is to maintain our interest in learning about righteousness from Jesus while living among people who seem to have little, if any, such interest…and who seem not to be suffering any ill effects from that lack of interest. Jesus knows firsthand the temptation we feel to give up. However, He does not know what it feels like to give in to it. This fact is what enables us to maintain hope.
***
Monday, September 11, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- God’s command to the human race is so simple and straightforward: “Follow Jesus Christ!” This is not an instruction to Christians; it is an instruction to everyone. We need to stop dividing people into Christians and non-Christians; the whole world is Christian because it all belongs to Christ. It was given to Him; He received it as an inheritance. He is both judge and savior of the entire human race. We cannot make anyone else obey Him. We cannot even make the other members of our family obey Him. It is enough that we individually obey Him…today. Come tomorrow, we’ll do the same. But tomorrow’s a long way off. Follow Jesus Christ today!
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Sunday, September 10, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The secular mind sees the word of God as either nonexistent or optional, whereas the mind of faith looks for the word of God every day as if it’s the food that is necessary to avoid discomfort and sustain life.
- Two US senators focus on men.
- In May 2023, Missouri senator Josh Hawley publishes a book titled Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.
- This month, Florida senator Marco Rubio publishes a report titled “The State of the Working (And Non-Working) Man.”
- Presidential candidate Larry Elder says that fatherlessness has reached epidemic levels and is the number one social problem in America.
- No word yet on whether any of these politicians have read The Duty of a Man, but we can nevertheless be encouraged by their interest in the subject matter.
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Saturday, September 9, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The best way to understand Jesus as God is to understand him as a man. That is, study him as a man – the same way you would seek to understand any other historical man (e.g. Julius Caesar, Napoleon, or George Washington). Seek the primary historical sources, which in the case of Jesus are the 27 writings of 8 men who were his contemporaries. The better you understand Jesus as a man, the more you will realize that He was also more than just a man.
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Friday, September 8, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Jesus of Nazareth came to us in the name of God our Creator. Did he not demonstrate that he was a subject matter expert when it came to God? Did he not exhibit domain expertise in everything pertaining to God? In the history of the human race, has anyone ever shown a greater mastery of that subject than he did? Let us therefore stop ignoring what he had to say. That is, let us read the Bible – especially the red. Every day.
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Thursday, September 7, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Newscaster Tom Brokaw wrote a book about the generation of Americans that experienced the Great Depression and World War II, titling it The Greatest Generation. In that book he wrote “[I]t is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.” I don’t know how he manages to rank that generation above the one that birthed the country, but for him to say it was the greatest generation that “any society has ever produced” seems incredibly naive and myopic. (See BSN: The Greatest Generation of All.) Leaving the issue of “greatest” aside, what I want to identify and label is the “worst” generation of Americans that has ever lived. It has to be mine – the Baby Boom generation. We are the ones who have been so self-infatuated that we let this great country slip through our hands. No other generation of Americans has been the one that was asleep at the switch when it mattered most. The constitutional republic we once had is gone; all we have now is an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy. Therefore, all that we can do now is pray for the deliverance of true Americans who revere the God of our founding documents. What the future holds is unknown to us except that there will be wrath for our sins but deliverance for those individuals and families who seek to believe in and obey Jesus Christ.
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Wednesday, September 6, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- George Barna continues to release information about his new book (see links to articles on it in notes below for August 23rd and 26th). Barna reports that the segment of the American adult population that holds a biblical worldview is down to 4%. That’s not even one in ten people! Barna’s research shows this this dismal state was reached by parents not effectively passing on their biblical worldview to their children. His book identifies five key insights to turning things around.
- Key Insight #1 – A person’s worldview starts developing in the second year of life (from 15 to 18 months) and is largely in place by the age of 13. That’s the prime window of opportunity for discipleship.
- Key Insight #2 – Parents have the primary responsibility for the spiritual development and discipleship of their children. But very few parents have the spiritual development of their children on their radar screen.
- Key Insight #3 – The research identified “outsourcing” as a troubling new trend among today’s parenting, as parents are increasingly delegating key child-rearing tasks to others.
- Key Insight #4 – The approaches today’s parents are taking in their children’s spiritual development are not working.
- Key Insight #5 – The research identifies four key strategies that parents can use to successfully disciple their children. And the heartbeat for this process is the “Seven Cornerstones of a Biblical Worldview.”
- You don’t need to read Barna’s book to act on his insights. In fact, his allegiance to church involvement will only distract you. There’s no greater example of parents “outsourcing” the spiritual teaching and oversight of their children than church involvement. One of the main reasons that there are so many megachurches (2,000 in attendance) these days is that parents gravitate to churches with the most robust youth programs. Smaller churches just don’t have sufficient resources to compete. Yet it is in the age of increasing megachurches with their superior youth programs that a biblical worldview has declined to a shameful 4%.
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Tuesday, September 5, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Your faith is only as good as the one in whom you place it.
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Monday, September 4, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Modern churchgoing is entirely different from ancient churchgoing. That is, people are going to church today for reasons that never occurred to believers in the book of Acts; and believers in the book of Acts went to church for reasons that never occur to churchgoers today. In a nutshell, believers in the book of Acts went to church because of the word of God, but people go to church today because it’s the tradition of the elders. Jesus took a very dim view of letting the traditions of men overrule the commandments of God (Mark 7:1-13). It’s just another example of Nehushtan (Num 21:9; 2 Kings 18:1-4; John 3:14-15).
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Sunday, September 3, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- “In an appeals court Thursday, Helsinki’s top prosecutor said publicly quoting the Bible and publishing a booklet about Christian sexual ethics violates Finland’s ‘hate speech’ law…[One of the two individuals charged] is also criminally charged with posting a Bible verse to X (formerly Twitter) and stating Christian theology in a radio interview. The prosecutor wants all recordings of the radio interview taken down and the booklet to be unavailable online, and fines levied against both Christians.” (full article at The Federalist, September 1, 2023) Finland is an ally of the US, a member of the European Union, and recently joined NATO. The article goes on to say that the Finnish prosecutor argued in court that “condemning homosexual acts condemns homosexuals as human beings,” and that using the Bible’s word “sin” to describe any non-marital sexual acts violates “sexual rights” and is “insulting” and “degrading.”
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Saturday, September 2, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) recently published an article titled “Secularization Begins at Home.” It provides research data consistent with that provided by George Barna (linked below in notes for August 23th and 26th). The specific point of this IFS article is that people don’t generally turn secular as adults; rather, they turn secular as children but without their parents noticing it. (As is common with studies like these, being religious or having faith is usually equated with churchgoing; but until there are more people like us, we can’t expect to show up in their studies. Until then, researchers probably won’t notice that it’s precisely because parents have outsourced the religious instruction of their children to the church that they fail to notice when the kids turn secular. Secularism is a way of thinking, and minds turn secular while in the pew and this is why bodies eventually leave the pew.) Here are the article’s key sub-points:
- “Most of the decline in religion in America is actually among children, and virtually all of it among people under age 22.”
- “Parents don’t perceive their child as losing their religious beliefs, when, in fact, their child has already lost their faith.”
- “The decline in religiosity across America in the 2000s and 2010s appears to be driven by a failure by parents to pass on the faith in the 1990s and 2000s.”
- “Childhood, including before age 13, is the key battleground for religious formation.”
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Friday, September 1, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French diplomat, political philosopher, and historian. He wrote the book Democracy in America in two volumes (1835 and 1840) after visiting and studying this country. In it, he portrays America as a thoroughly Christian nation, though you would never get this impression from reading the Wikipedia articles about him or about the book. Short of reading the book yourself, the best way to get a sense of just how Christian the nation still was 50 years after its founding is to read a compilation of direct quotes from the book produced by St. Louisan William J. Federer. You won’t have to read long to get a sense of how dramatically far we have drifted from our moorings. The drift is nothing less than stunning. A 2020’s American who reads and talks about the Bible every day is an oddity; he would have been considered quite normal in 1830’s America.
Thursday, August 31, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- We’ve all seen the dreadful statistics about the ever-increasing percentage of fatherless homes in America – a number that is currently around 40%. Yet these stats can only measure the physical presence of a father. What about homes where the father is physically present but mentally or emotional absent insofar as the children are concerned because he is so wrapped up in his own worries that he can’t give appropriate attention to the children’s worries? This is another reason why daily family Bible reading is so important. It lays the proper foundation for the kind of communications that should take place between a father and a child during the day. That is, every father-child relationship should be colored with the context of what their Creator-Redeemer has done – and continues to do – for them.
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The four Gospels primarily use two words to describe those who sought, followed, or listened to Jesus: “crowds” (observers) and “disciples” (students). When it came time for Jesus to commission His apostles just before He ascended into heaven, did He command them to make “crowds” of all the nations or to make “disciples” of all the nations? (Ans: Matt 28:18-20 – this is an open-book test.) For this reason, it is the true ministers of the gospel in this age who urge you to read the Bible daily rather than attend church weekly.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- There is no apparent political solution to our nation’s problems. There is, however, a spiritual solution available to every man and his family. And it is a man’s duty to seek it. If you have not already, read The Duty of a Man. It presents the ark of salvation that will preserve you and your family from the flood of ills that is rising all around us.
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Monday, August 28, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- The most important decision a man ever makes in life is whom he will ask to marry him. Whatever is the second most important decision in life is not even close to the first in importance. (Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord is not a decision; it is obedience to a command. A soldier doesn’t decide whom his commanding officer is going to be; he’s told.)
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Sunday, August 27, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- When a man reads and explains the Bible to his children, he is demonstrating by his actions that he considers himself under authority – that his word is not the last word. This sight makes an impression on the child at least as great as whatever the man says.
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Saturday, August 26, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- For more on George Barna and his new book (about which I wrote you on Wednesday, August 23 below), see this article: “Barna: Parents’ Discipleship of Children Is Critical to Transforming Culture.”
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Friday, August 25, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- If anyone knows that we read 2-3 chapters of the Bible every day, he likely considers us “Bible thumpers.” Yet in colonial America, we would just be normal folks because the Bible was everywhere. It was regularly read and quoted in homes, schools, and the public square. In Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2017), academic and attorney Daniel L. Dreisbach documents the prevalence of Christianity and the Bible in those days. In doing so, he explains that modern historians, for various reasons, have left these facts out of the textbooks they have written about this period of history. Dreisbach’s eye-opening book (and there are others like it) help us to see how much modern academia has airbrushed the Bible out of American history, and that modern American society is much more antichrist than we have realized. In colonial America, no person could be considered educated if he was unfamiliar with the Bible; in modern American, it is practically the opposite. Here are some salient points Dreisbach makes in the early parts of his book. His case only gets stronger in the rest of the book.
- “The founders’ frequent use of the Bible is no surprise because they lived in an overwhelmingly Protestant culture and in a biblically literate society.” (p. 2)
- “…the founders and their contemporaries knew the Bible better than any other book.” (p. 2)
- “Biblical illiteracy…may explain the failure of some [modern] scholars to recognize the biblical language in [the founders’ writings]. The founders often quoted the Bible without the use of quotation marks or citations, which were not necessary for a biblically literate society but the absence of which fail to alert a biblically illiterate modern audience to the Bible’s invocation.” (p. 3)
- “The fact that a founder was “influenced” by the Bible does not indicate whether he or she was a Christian or skeptic – both were influenced by the Bible.” (p. 6)
- “A claim of biblical influence does not suggest that the founders were theocrats intent on imposing a biblical order on the polity.” (p. 7)
- “In modern, secular America, the Bible is often relegated…to the margins of public culture. In our highly rationalistic and technological contemporary culture, a veneration of Scripture is regarded by some elites as the preserve of an unsophisticated and unlearned class of citizens. This was not true of eighteenth-century America. Indeed, twenty-first-century Americans may find it difficult to appreciate the centrality of Christianity and the Bible to many aspects of public life in this earlier era. This is particularly true of the Bible’s place in the life of the mind.” (p. 7).
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Thursday, August 24, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- There’s a book being published next month titled The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. It’s being published by the University of Chicago Press. It is written by a female economist and based entirely on economic – not religious – arguments. Thus even a book written from a secular perspective for a secular audience and promoted by secular experts confirms something God has been telling us all along. Without even reading the book, we can see God’s wisdom being validated in the promotional comments. Here are some of them (and there are more at the link above):
- Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children.
- “Among the many great advances that American women have made since 1960, single-parenthood is not one of them. It’s brutally challenging for mothers. It’s epidemic among the families who can least afford it. And it deprives children of the economic and emotional resources that foster success in adulthood. This candid book by a superb scholar sets aside judgments and bromides to confront the urgent question of how America can do better by its children.” — David Autor, MIT
- “Kearney has written a courageous persuasive and profoundly important book. Our children will be better off, and our country will be stronger if her compelling analysis of the benefits of two-parent families is widely heard and acted on.” — Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard Kennedy School
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Wednesday, August 23, 2023
- Today’s Bible chapter readings, with links to help:
- George Barna researches and documents the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans at the intersection of faith and culture. He is in the process of publishing his 60th book: Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind and Soul. Promotional materials say that in it Barna “reveals that who your child will be as an adult is essentially determined by the age of 13―their core beliefs, morals, values, desires, and lifestyle.” No wonder the teachers’ unions have pushed so hard for the last half-century to drive the Bible and prayer out of the schools and replace them with teaching about evolution, environmentalism, and sex. Look around you and see all the harm this has inflicted on our society. By forming in your children a habit of daily Bible reading – by themselves and with family – long before they are 13, you are doing them – and society – a great good. A very great good.
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Previous Editions:
—2023 Author’s Journal (Jan 1 through Aug 22)
—2022 Author’s Journal
—2021 Author’s Journal
The Duty of a Man 