I enjoy reading Charles Spurgeon. He was a great preacher in the late 19th century. In reading today from his devotional, he treats a verse in the book of Hosea.

“In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ (17) I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. --Hosea 2:16-17 NIV

Spurgeon says this about the verse.

Last week, we talked the story of Ananias and Sapphira. While this is a tough passage, we discovered that their sin was not mere greed, but rather hypocrisy. We talked about this passage again during our small group on Monday evening and had a great discussion. I would challenge you to grapple with this difficult passage with a group of friends, small group, or Sunday school class. We asked a few questions together that I thought I would post in the blog.

1. Were Ananias and Sapphira Christians?

I was reading through Psalm 5 this morning and David’s words challenged my concept of prayer. David says,

Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. (2) Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. (3) In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. --Psalms 5:1-3 NIV

For the past few weeks, we have been studying the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. This study includes the coming of the Holy Spirit. His presence manifest itself in the wind, fire, and sound of various languages being spoken in understanding. As this miraculous situation occurs, some determine that they are drunk with wine. Peter stands up to address the crowd.

I have recently been reading a blog by a guy named Seth Godin. He is a marketing/business guru. His blog posts are generally short, but he has really clever insights. In a post from this week, he highlighted a company who was spamming him in pursuit of his business. He speaks of the way that in his mind, the company lost points with him by interrupting his life with spam. He goes on to say,

This morning, I was reading though Psalm 6. This is a powerful psalm where David is seeking God’s grace and mercy. He has perhaps sinned or at least he feels that he deserved the wrath of God. He begs God to not pour out his wrath, but to pour out his grace and mercy on him. He never demands that God offer this mercy because he deserves it. He begs God to offer it because it will bring glory and honor to God. In verse 4, he asked God to “deliver him, because of his unfailing love”. That term stuck me so I thought I would do a little research on it.

In our small group (20 somethings...yea, I am the old guy), we are studying the book of Acts along with the sermon series. Actually, we are looking at various stories/scripture that go along with where we are in the series. This past week, we looked at the story of the two guys on their way to Emmaus. I love this story! It may be one of my favorite stories.
We had a great discussion over the dynamics in the story. I thought that I would post a blog about some of the things we noticed. You may want to read the story to supplement your study of Acts.

Reg and I began the Acts series just a few weeks ago and we are now beginning to answer questions and add content from the series onto the Web site. I want to take a few minutes to talk about the book of Acts. Some of this information may seem a little basic, but I have a hunch that someone reading this blog may not have a clue about the things that you learned in Sunday school. Anyway, here it goes...

Importance of Acts

Over the last week or so, I have been contemplating and meditating on Psalm 5. I have also been reading The Treasury of David by Charles Spurgeon along with it. Spurgeon was a preacher from the late 19th century in England. His work is wonderful!

Yesterday, we talked about the miracles of Jesus. You can listen to the sermon on the sermons page. I have included a few notes and the text if you would like to do further study.
The passage is John 6 and is rather lengthy passage. We covered the first few verses.

“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.” (John 6:1-2 NIV)