Month: November 2019

The second woe to afflict the Pharisees was this: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15) How can the goal of religious teaching, practice,…

God’s original plan, and His final plan for the new earth, do not entail or involve suffering. Yet suffering is a way of life for all of us on earth. Some may suffer more than others, but there is no-one who does not suffer at some time or other. Although God is not the cause…

We’ve been discussing prayer: What makes it effective, how should we pray, and what should we expect from it? The Lord’s Prayer is a communal prayer, and one of its core elements is a plea to be led not into temptation. In Gethsemane, Jesus again put prayer and temptation in such a juxtaposition that it…

Last week we discussed the suffering that seems to be the common element in several prayers, including the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane on the night of His arrest. We questioned whether or not suffering is part of God’s plan, God’s will. It was evidently His plan for the Egyptians during the period in which…

We often pray because we want God to intervene in our affairs on our behalf. Some people seem to be successful at it, others not at all. Churches hold up the first as prayer warriors, paragons of virtue, lauded for their faith and admired for their devotion. As for the others, however, we question their…