“When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.” —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” —Florence Nightingale
“Be like the brave Spartan who would never lose his shield, but would come home either with it or on it. ‘Cast not away your confidence.’ You trusted in God in those early days, and nothing seemed to daunt you then. ‘Cast not away your confidence.’ Rather, get more to add to it. Let there be no thought of going back, but may there rather be a distinct advance!” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Hebrews 10:34-35
“Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.’” —G.K. Chesterton
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“To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence.” —Hannah Whitall Smith
A mother’s power impacts her children while she is alive, and a mother’s influence continues to empower them after she is gone. Other than Jesus Himself, I’m not sure who has a greater influence than a God-fearing mother.
A mother’s influence is seen in her children.
Paul was a prolific evangelist and letter writer. His letters make up a huge part of the New Testament of the Bible. Much of his travel and his letters were thanks to a faithful traveling companion named Timothy.
Paul’s very last letter was written to Timothy, in which he called him my dear son (2 Timothy 1:2)
Paul met him in Lystra where Timothy was well spoken of (Acts 16:1-2)
Paul knew the anointing that was on Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6; 1 Timothy 1:18)
Timothy stepped right into the fire of ministry—persecution in Philippi and Thessalonica; then he followed Paul to Corinth (Acts 18:1-5)
Timothy was entrusted to deliver valuable letters and answer questions (1 Corinthians 4:17, 16:10-11; Philippians 2:19-23; 1 Thessalonians 2:18—3:6)
In his first pastoral epistle, we see that Paul commissioned Timothy to pastor in Ephesus (a challenging place), and he reminds Timothy that he is my true son (1 Timothy 1:2)
Paul knows that this godly man, this trusted friend, this faithful companion is a product of the power and influence of his mother, who in her turn was influence by her mother (2 Timothy 1:5).
There is very little mention of Timothy’s father, other than he was aGreek. That could mean he was of Greek nationality or that he was a Gentile. We know Gentiles were looking for Jesus (John 12:20-21) and were turning to Jesus (Acts 14:1), but it would seem this wasn’t the case for Timothy’s dad, since neither Luke nor Paul mention him by name.
The fact that we don’t know his name may means that he passed away or he may have been uninvolved in Timothy’s upbringing. We can at least tell that his father—who had the right to name his children—was hoping for great things from his son. The name Timotheus means honoring God.
The main influence in Timotheus’ life was his mother and grandmother. Already he was known as a disciple. Recall that Luke seldom used the word “Christian” but usually called the followers of Jesus saints, believers, and disciples. We also read that the fellow brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him (Acts 16:2).
Paul says this is because Lois (mimi) and Eunice (mama) had a sincere faith (2 Timothy 1:5), which literally means “without any hypocrisy.” Andrew Murray wrote, “Your motherhood is in God’s sight holier and more blessed than you realize.” This was in a time before the Church was very well established, so there were very few supports around them; certainly Timothy’s father wasn’t a supporter.
Timothy felt this impact just as King David did (Psalm 86:16). Paul tells Timothy to follow my example (v. 13-14) and follow the example of your godly mother and grandmother (v. 5).
Mothers and grandmothers, keep the faith!
Your life has power and it has influence. Charles Spurgeon said, “The devil never reckons a man to be lost so long as he has a good mother alive. O woman, great is thy power!”
Great, indeed, is your power, Mom! Don’t give up, don’t give in to despair.
I hope you get to see your power and your influence in your lifetime, but even if you don’t, be assured that your influence will outlive you—I am persuaded [the faith of your mother] now lives in you also!
Kids, today would be an especially good day to let your mother and grandmother know the positive influence they have had on your life. Trust me: nothing would make their day more than hearing those words from you!
We are born with a certain level of intuition, but we can definitely build a stronger intuition by learning lessons from history. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had about a leader’s intuition + execution.
“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?’” —G.K. Chesterton
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who. —Rudyard Kipling
“All the work of man is but the spinning of a righteousness which is undone as quickly as it is spun; but Christ has finished the seamless and spotless robe of His righteousness which is to last for ever.” —Charles Spurgeon
The Institute for Creation Research opens an article about the impact of and recovery from the biblical Flood with this, “In the beginning, God created plants and animals to multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1:11–13, 20–25). So, when areas are devastated, living things are engineered with the innate ability to rebound and recolonize. This was seen in the rapid recovery of life at Mount St. Helens after the cataclysmic volcanic eruption of May 18, 1980. But conventional scientists seem to be finally recognizing and appreciating the reality of rapid recovery a bit more after studying the life that existed after the supposed Chicxulub impact.”
John Piper addressing the role of spiritual affections in the life of a Christian says, “No machine, no computer, no AI will ever duplicate the spiritual reality of the soul’s enjoyment of God.”
“Ignorance of Scripture is the mother of error. … Many lay aside Scripture as rusty armour (Jeremiah 8:9); they are better read in romances than in St. Paul; they spend many hours inter pectinem et speculum—‘between the comb and the glass’—but their eyes begin to be sore when they look upon a Bible. They who slight the Word written, slight God Himself, whose stamp it bears.” —Thomas Watson
In discussing how Thomas Huxley coined the term agnostic, John Stonestreet and Dr. Glenn Sunshine note, “If God is rational and created an orderly universe and human beings in His image, we can study the universe. Without these assumptions, there is no reason to assume the world is knowable or that humans are able to know. It is the theistic assumption, not the agnostic assumption, that grounds science. By rejecting God, scientists undercut the foundations for their work.”
“There will come a time when every culture, every institution, every nation, the human race, all biological life is extinct and every one of us is still alive. Immortality is promised to us, not to these generalities. It was not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men.” —C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory
“If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land of the living, and see the vast system and social organization and social science which now controls, he would probably simplify his observation and say, ‘Give me death.’” —G.K. Chesterton, speaking in New York City’s Time Square Theatre in 1921
T.M. Moore has an excellent series of posts about God and reason. In the post Since God is Reasonable, he writes, “If we are sluggish in reason, so that we do not like to have to think hard and long about matters; or if our skills in reasoning are inadequate, poorly honed, or rusty from disuse, then we should make it our business to overcome our laziness and improve our use of reason, since the great prize of reasoning with and knowing God lies open to us.”
I’m always impressed by the historicity of the Bible. “Archaeology has demonstrated that numerous people, places, and events within the books [of Ezra and Nehemiah] are historically accurate,” says this post.
“The Jewish high priests went once a year into the Holy of Holies. Each year as it came round demanded that they should go again. Their work was never done; but ‘He entered in once,’ and only once, ‘into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.’ I love that expression, ‘eternal redemption’—a redemption which really does redeem, and redeems forever and ever. If you are redeemed by it, you cannot be lost; if this redemption be yours, it is not for a time, or for a season, but it is ‘eternal redemption.’ Oh, how you ought to rejoice in the one entrance within the veil by our great High Priest who has obtained eternal redemption for us!” —Charles Spurgeon
“It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes that the man who really knows he cannot pay his debt will be for ever paying it. He will be for ever giving back what he cannot give back, and cannot be expected to give back. He will be always throwing things away into a bottomless pit of unfathomable thanks.” —G.K. Chesterton
“No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as ‘what a man does with his solitude.’ It was one of the Wesleys, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another. … We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” —C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
“One will wickedly say, ‘If I am a child of God, I may live as I like.’ That is damnable doctrine. Another will say, ‘If I am a child of God, I shall not want to live as I like, but as God likes, and I shall be led by the grace of God into the path of holiness, and through divine grace I shall persevere in that way of holiness right to the end.’ That is quite another doctrine, and it is the true teaching of the Word of God.” —Charles Spurgeon
There’s nothing wrong with getting godly advice from someone, and there’s nothing wrong with sharing godly wisdom with others. Let’s just make sure that we’re not putting godly people above God Himself.
“If sin came to you openly proclaiming itself as sin, you would fight against it; but it is very cunning and deceitful and it gradually petrifies the heart and especially the heart of those who think that they will never provoke God by their sin. Pride has already begun to work in them; and where pride can work, every other sin finds elbow-room.” —Charles Spurgeon
The Eiffel Tower may be one of the most iconic symbols of architecture. In this post, we learn that its creator “Gustave Eiffel, a French engineer, looked not to classical architecture or ancient ruins but to the human body—specifically, the thigh bone.”
“He that hath slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God.” —John Owen
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Then I said, “Here I am—it is written about Me in the scroll—I have come to do Your will, My God.” (Hebrews 10:7)
“How lowly did Jesus become to purge away our sins and that by Himself, too, using His own body to be the means, by His sufferings, of taking away our guilt. Not by proxy did He serve us, but by Himself. Oh, this is wondrous love!” —Charles Spurgeon
And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)
If leaders want to get the best ideas and implement the best strategies, they must invite everyone on their team to share from their unique perspective. This is the only way to get the whole picture. Check out this full conversation from The Craig and Greg Show.
T.M. Moore writes, “We can know that we love our neighbors when, like Jesus, we go seeking them, in order to touch them with His love.”
This last week marked the 187th anniversary of the first time “O.K.” was first published as an abbreviation. The word’s origin is an interesting story, with some calling it “one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America’s greatest lingual exports.”
“Meekness and gentleness are two of the ornaments of our faith. I would that some professed Christians would understand that unholy contentiousness is not after the mind of Christ, it is not according to that gracious command, ‘Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ No, the Christian must be willing to suffer wrongfully, and to bear it in patience; he is never to be one who renders evil for evil, or railing for railing.” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Titus 3:2
“Then, since according to the Lord’s warnings the blood of so many will be sought for at the hands of their shepherds, careful watch must be kept, that is, the Word of the Lord must be often preached, and preached by the shepherds, by the Church’s bishops and teachers, that none may perish through ignorance; for he perishes through lack of heed, his blood will be on his own head.” —Columbanus, Letter to Pope Boniface
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.” —James Madison
“A good friend is like a four-leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have.” —Irish proverb
“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“If you want to win the day, you’ve got to flip the script. How? The Bible is a good starting point. Scripture is more than our script; it’s our script-cure. And that’s more than a play on words. Scripture confronts the false identities and false narratives perpetrated by the Father of Lies. It reveals the heavenly Father’s metanarrative and the unique role that each one of us plays in it.” —Mark Batterson, Win The Day
Your gratitude blesses future generations. When you talk about the ways God has blessed you—and you are continually grateful for His provision—you are fortifying future generations as well.
“Wherever men are still theological, there is still some chance of their being logical.” —G.K. Chesterton
“We must not be too hot upon cold matters, but even this is better than to be cold upon matters that require heat.” —Charles Spurgeon
Clinton Manley says, “Although the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5–7 is often called a sermon, these words are closer to Henry V on the battlefield than to a pastor in his pulpit.” Before you read the Beatitudes again, check out this background to this battlefield message from Jesus.
“The ping of a notification, the silent vibration in a pocket, the ambient awareness that something, somewhere, might require a response: these are not incidental features of modern life. They are now its architecture…. The mind never fully settles. It hovers in a state of anticipatory vigilance, perpetually primed for the next interruption.” —Carl Hendrick
Jesus showed us how to remain faithful as a shepherd even in the face of painful attacks. If you are a pastor—or if you love your pastor—please check out my books Shepherd Leadership and When Sheep Bite.
Every year I see the same unsubstantiated claims that the Christian celebration of Christmas is a hodgepodge of pagan and cultic myths cobble together and hijacked by Christians. Here are three myths refuted by archeological evidence.
Dr. Allen Tennison points out how Luke emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit all throughout his Gospel, and then continues that theme as he moves into the Book of Acts.
“One of the first gospel blessings is that of complete justification. A sinner, though guilty in himself, no sooner believes in Jesus than all his sins are pardoned. The righteousness of Christ becomes his righteousness, and he is accepted in the Beloved.” —Charles Spurgeon
“For the apostle Paul, as, indeed, for all the apostles and early Christians, the Church is the Body of Christ, the continuing incarnation of the reigning and conquering King of Glory. The Church, according to the apostles, is the centerpiece of Christ’s historical agenda (Matthew 16:18). Whatever Christ intends to do on earth prior to His imminent return, the focal point of that work will be in and through His Church. … We do not have the mind of Christ if we are not thinking the same way about His Body, the Church. We need the Church, and if we do not think this is so, then we do not have the mind of Christ. We need the Church. But we need it according to the purpose with the guidance and blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ.” —T.M. Moore
What an amazing story of faithfulness! The faithfulness of God is seen in the loving actions of an unnamed Sunday School teacher and in a lifelong missionary.
Cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace contrasts blind belief and unreasonable belief with what he calls forensic faith. His conclusion: “A forensic faith gives you confidence in uncertainty, strength in adversity, and the ability to engage intellectually with both believers and skeptics. It transforms faith from mere hope into informed trust, and that makes all the difference in how you live out your beliefs in a world that’s constantly questioning them.”
“Depression is one of satan’s most dynamic weapons to divert you from God’s purpose for your life. If he can scatter a little dejection here and there in your thoughts—and even in your prayers—he can convince you to remove your breastplate of righteousness because it is too cumbersome and will go against your material and temporal interest. Do not give in that easily!” —William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armor
Preaching to ourselves is not only a good rescue from anxiety, but it’s also a good inoculation to keep us from sliding from contentment into crisis.
Craig T. Owens 