Serious About Scripture

It had not occurred to me that the fences in view on our back porch were so much in the style of colonial America. Such fences always impressed me when visiting Williamsburg in Virginia. The very wealthy might have wrought iron or stone, but the common fence 250 years ago was waist high and wooden, sometimes painted but often not, just like ours. There is a warmth to that, as I look out over the fences here among neighbors, some…

I hope you are part of a church that includes “the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13) at its main weekly meeting. Family worship is also a common setting for reading Scripture out loud to others. In both of these settings, both the reader and the hearers are, as John wrote about the public reading of Revelation, “blessed” (Rev. 1:3). What follows are two additional ways we can experience this blessing as readers and also bless others.  First, read…

Colossians 4:12-13 “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” Epaphras was, according to the Apostle Paul, the person who started the church at Colossae. This was his hometown, situated about 100 miles…