This Week's Focus Passage: Luke 13:3, 5 'Except ye repent, ye shall all in like manner perish.' Now there were some present at that very season who told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered and said unto them, Think ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they have suffered these thi...

This Week's Focus Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4:16 'But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep.' But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will...

This Week's Focus Passage: 1 Thessalonians 1:5 'Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power.' After the salutation that Paul offered in his first epistle to the church of the Thessalonians, he began immediately to engage in thanksgiving and praise to God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, in verses two through five in the first chapter. Read carefu...

This Week's Focus Passage: 2 Kings 2:11 'Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.' What a dramatic exit from the earth was granted to this prophet, Elijah. The first notice given him in the Word of God is almost as dramatic;read at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter, simply that he 'said unto Ahab, As Jehovah, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, th...

This Week's Focus Passage: Psalm 119:176 'I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant.' While even the 'Prince of Preachers', as Charles Spurgeon was called, of London in the 19thcentury, was forced to concede that he could not with absolute certainty maintain that 'the man after God's own heart' was the inspired author of the 119thpsalm, he nonetheless decla...

This Week's Focus Passage: Colossians 1:12-13 'Who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.' Considering the phrase utilized by the apostle Paul in this epistle to the church, that is the 'saints at Colosse,' when he speaks to them as those, along with himself, and as he does so in verses twelve and thirteen of the first chapter of Colos...

This Week's Focus Passage: Luke 2:25 'Looking for the consolation of Israel.' Are we Christians today not looking for the consolation of Israel? This text before us this week, speaks of the man Simeon, about whom Luke has told us, in Luke 2:25-35, that he was encountered by Mary and Joseph as they were bringing their child into Jerusalem; it was afterthe days of their ...

1 Kings 2:27 'That he might fulfill the word of Jehovah.' And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death: but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord Jehovah before David my father, and because thou wast afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So ...

Mark 16:18 'They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing. This portion of the gospel according to Mark, that is, Mark 16:9-20, is one of a few contested passages in our bibles, and also in the annals of textual criticism. It has been under the microscope of this form of criticism for a good number of years. It should be noted that textual criticism ...

This Week's Focus Passage: Galatians 1:7 'There are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.' Paul continues, in his epistle to the churches of Galatia, to speak of what he has called 'a different gospel.' What has he said is this thing, this 'different gospel?' He defines this in the next verse, verse eight, where he has written,But though we, o...