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  Honor your father and your mother (Exod 20:12).   The fifth word above rests upon an important presumption: Fathers and mothers must be worthy of honor. Yet we live in a world that suggests that honor lies principally apart from one’s children. Or, to say it a bit more... Read More →

  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exod 20:8).   Have you ever wondered why Jesus healed so regularly on the Sabbath? Considering the danger He faced for so doing, why did Jesus seem to choose the Sabbath for healing? To understand, let’s briefly look at the Sabbath.... Read More →

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain (Exod 20:7).   “My walk is a public one. My business is in the world; and I must mix in the assemblies of men, or quit the post which Providence seems to... Read More →

You shall have no other gods before me . . . You shall not make for yourself a carved image . . . You shall not bow down to them or serve them . . . (Exodus 20:3-6). The first commandment in the Decalogue concerns worship, forbidding the worship of anything apart from God alone.... Read More →

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exod 20:2). The Lord constantly reminds His people of who He is. In the Old Testament, the Lord instituted the Passover as an annual reminder that He delivered Israel from slavery. In... Read More →

Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy” (Psalm 86:1). Years ago, pregnancy care centers were typically called “crisis pregnancy centers.” I am not sure why most centers dropped the term “crisis,” but I suspect it had something to do with letting women... Read More →

One evening in 1787 a young English M.P. pored over papers by candlelight in his home beside the Houses of Parliament. Wilberforce had been asked to propose the Abolition of the Slave Trade although almost all Englishmen thought the Trade necessary, if nasty, and that economic... Read More →

   Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood. And all the people shall say “Amen” (Deuteronomy 27:25).   It is hard to imagine anyone objecting to the Old Testament forbidding bribery in the service of murder. One would think such a law would be axiomatic in... Read More →

  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the... Read More →

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9)   The following reflections are on John 4, which concerns a Samaritan woman who came to draw from a well at noon (which many have suggested meant that she was trying to avoid others who would... Read More →