Pastor: John Scripture Reference: II Samuel 19:40-20:22

  27 Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. Philippians 1:27-28 (ESV)

  As William Tyndale studied the Bible, he became convinced that neither the English laity nor the clergy knew much about its content. On one occasion, a conversation with a priest bolstered that opinion. When the priest declared, “We are better to be without God’s law than the Pope’s,” Tyndale had enough. He retorted that if the Lord let him live long enough, he would cause common children to know more Scripture than the priest.1 That did not take long. For by age 40, he translated much of the Bible into vernacular English, granting common believers the ability to study […]

  One bitterly cold winter night in 1867 Thomas Barnardo, then a young, medical missionary student, found a pitiful-looking boy curled up by the dying fire in the tiny London building1 in which he had been teaching other poor boys that evening. Barnardo told the boy to go home to his mother, but the boy, Jim Jarvis, replied that he did not have a mother, or a father, that he “Ain’t got no friends…and Oi—don’t—live—nowhere.”2 When Barnardo enquired further as to where he slept, Jim led him to some of the roofs and gutters in the East End of London […]

  ‘I grew up Southern Baptist’ by Bonnie Pritchett REVISED 12/18/09 to improve information about the abortion drug RU 486 described in paragraphs 31 and 33. BRYAN, Texas (BP)–Abby Johnson had never felt so alone. Sitting in her Planned Parenthood office and weeping, Johnson, who was raised Southern Baptist, knew God had called her to leave her job as director of the women’s health and abortion clinic and join forces with the Coalition for Life advocates just down the street.

  It was noontime, May 10, 1869, when Leland Stanford drove a ceremonial golden spike into a special laurel tie to complete the first U.S. transcontinental railway. The iconic photo shows hundreds of dignitaries and railroad workers gathered in the Utah desert around two facing locomotives. It was an extraordinary event, a media sensation, for the frontier had been bridged, and the West was now open for business. But there were big problems.

  This commentary contains material that may not be suitable for children. Women’s groups are going to have their work cut out for them at the University of Maryland. So will the health clinics and campus police. They’re going to be busy cleaning up the mess if the school decides to give a green light to showing X-rated films on campus.

  23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live […]