Sometime back in 2009 or 10, a church couple brought a friend over to our apartment in California. This friend was visiting the couple during a break from Bible college and wanted to meet me. After we settled in, I started asking him questions about his classes. He told me he was in one
Welcome to a new year and a new daily reading plan. Like many reading plans, our plan starts us in Genesis, the first book of the Bible and the Old Testament. So far this week, we have completed the first section of Genesis, chapters 1-11. These chapters include many accounts or “stories”, the final
While most people are focused on Christmas right now, The Church Next Door staff is focused on next year. Specifically, we are focused on how we can bless as many people as we possibly can next year, that is, how we can help people grow closer to God as we move into 2022 and
Our daily reading plan takes us to our final book both of the year and of the Bible this year. That book is the book of Revelation. The fact that we are in Revelation right now, the final few days of the year, bothers me for two reasons. The first is that we are
Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah and mother of John the Baptist, is not usually included in our traditional nativity scenes. As far as I know, she is never included in our traditional nativity scenes. I have never encountered a nativity scene that had Elizabeth standing next to the angels, animals, shepherds, and wise men
We are moving into and completing Hebrews this week. There is much about Hebrews that is unique. It is one of the few books of the Bible that start with a prologue rather than a greeting or statement of purpose (the others are John and 1 John). It is the only New Testament book
I Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are next up in our reading plan. Collectively, these books are known as “the pastoral epistles” because they were written to pastors (Timothy and Titus) and are mostly about how to pastor. These epistles have always been a part of my life. I learned 2 Timothy before I
It is Thanksgiving week, my all-time favorite week of the year, and our daily reading plan is speeding us through Paul’s shorter epistles. While we had three days with Galatians, we only got two each with Ephesians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians and just one with Colossians. Despite this rapid pace, I still caught a
Our daily reading plan is giving us three days in Galatians, and that makes me rather happy. I have a strong personal connection to and fondness for this book. Galatians was the first book I studied in Bible college and thus the book I have known the longest. It was the first book I
1 Corinthians is where we are in our daily reading plan, and I’m not super-thrilled about that. As I’ve repeatedly stated, I respect all the books of the Bible, regarding each of them as 100% inspired by God and thus “good” in the sense of being valuable and necessary. But as I have also
