Despising Your Neighbor is Despising God

In one of Paul's letters to Timothy, he told the young preacher that in the last days, "people will be lovers of themselves" (2 Tim. 3:1 NET). Biblically speaking, there is proper self-love. If you love God first and foremost and your neighbor as yourself, that's a way to show proper love for yourself (cf. …

The Value of Really Old Commentaries

Of the various commentaries I use while studying Scripture and writing sermons, I keep going back to some of the very old ones. I very much enjoy the commentaries of Chrysostom, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, and so on. These ancient commentaries have spiritual insight into the text that many modern technical commentaries miss. There is …

God’s Word Is Not Bound!

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote this wonderful truth: The word of God cannot be chained (NLT) (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ οὐ δέδεται NA28) [2 Tim. 2:9b]. When studying this phrase today I found a great short comment on this verse by Chrysostom (d. 407). Any cloud passing over our skies may from …

Why Did Jesus Speak Obscurely? (Chrysostom)

Have you ever been reading through the Gospels and found Christ's words somewhat puzzling? I certainly have. To be sure, many of Jesus' words are quite clear and understandable. But he did say things that are more difficult to understand at first glance. A question arises: Why didn't Jesus always and in every circumstance speak, …

Dusty Bibles and the Early Church (Chrysostom)

I'm sure most of us have heard the criticism that some Christians have Bibles that are dusty. That is, too often Christians simply don't read their Bibles so their Bibles get dusty, so to speak. We're not the only generation of Christians that haven't read our Bibles as we should. One well-known preacher in the …