7“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write . . . 8 ‘I know your works . . . I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.” Revelation 3:7-9 (ESV)

Pastor John Scripture Reference: Galatians 5:1-26

  The cloistered monks at Cluny were devotees of the illuminated manuscript, those elegantly and exotically illustrated copies of the Bible so popular in the Middle Ages. Surely Bernard of Clairvaux, author of such reverential hymns as “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” would find them edifying. The painstaking artistry they required testified to the grandeur of the text they served. Bernard’s verdict: “What are the filthy apes doing there? The fierce lions? The monstrous centaurs? . . .You may see many bodies under one head, and conversely many heads on one body.”1 He […]

  A patron saint of atheists and sexual libertines, Bertrand Russell was caught up in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. The idea of human breeding apart from the strictures of marriage was consistent with his admiration for promiscuity. But even sexually “liberated” people should find his “scientific” approach to these matters chilling. This selection from Marriage and Morals shows the racism, moral blindness, and arrogance to which a godless man can easily sink.

Pastor Chris Scripture Reference: Galatians 4:1-31

  Good grades could be contagious. Students surrounded by friends who earn better grades than they do tend to see their own grades rise over the next year, according to a new study.

  ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) — According to a recent directive issued by the Massachusetts Department of Education, public schools in the Bay State must allow boys and girls who identify as the opposite sex to utilize whichever restroom and/or locker room they feel most comfortable using. And they won’t need a doctor’s note to do so.

  A Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor who preached thirty-one years at the Chicago’s Southside Gospel Tabernacle (1928-1959), Aiden Wilson Tozer often confronted church practice that embraced secular methods and individual choice that stifled godliness. In the 1950s Tozer spoke out boldly against the “great god Entertainment” to which so many “sons of heaven” were paying allegiance. While he calls for a much stricter separation from the world than most Christians would affirm today, a great deal can still be learned from Tozer’s warning—Christians are to be wary of the seductive nature of a culture saturated with idols of entertainment.

Pastor Chris Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:1-29

  Christopher Ash is Director of the Cornhill Training Course in London. He is the author of Marriage: Sex in the Service of God (Nottingham, UK: InterVarsity Press, 2003), which contains fuller discussion of the issues in this article; also of Out of the Storm: Questions and Consolations from the Book of Job (Nottingham, UK: InterVarsity Press, 2004).