Esther 1—2, Acts 5:1-21 Acts 5:12-14 A growing trend in sports is for athletes from opposing teams to gather after the game, kneel and pray. What began as the practice of a few players on one team has spread to other sports, from the ranks of pros down to prep...
Nehemiah 12-13, Acts 4:23-37 • Key Verse: Acts 4:32 It doesn’t take too many percentage points above 50 for an election to be considered a landslide. When the vote totals edge closer to 60 than 50 percent, politicians talk about the mandate they have and how the people have spoken....
Nehemiah 10-11, Acts 4:1—22 • Key Verse: Nehemiah 10:29 Every time you sign a credit card receipt, you are signing a legally binding contract. The wording of the contract states simply that you agree to pay the debt. Putting something in writing carries more weight than a verbal agreement. Imagine...
Nehemiah 7—9, Acts 3 • Key Verse: Nehemiah 7:2 “Who ya gonna call?” became a catch phrase back in the 1980s. Both the question and its intended answer came out of popular culture but hit on a basic need. When you need something done, who are you “gonna call”? And...
Nehemiah 4-6, Acts 2:22-47 • Key Verse: Acts 2:42 What we learn from the past can help us prepare for the future. God has given us the Bible to tell us how to be saved and how to live as His people. It is very important that we learn to...
Nehemiah 1-3, Acts 2:1—21 • Key Verse: Nehemiah 1:11 You can make a career out of writing instructions. People need them for all kinds of things—assembling, installing, using and replacing. Sometimes we need pictures to go with the words. To know what to do is good. To be told what...
Ezra 9-10, Acts 1 • Key Verse: Acts 1:14 In today's passages are two scenes of prayer: one at a time of confession, the other at what must have been a time of confusion. Both remind us that while we should often have times of private prayer, we also need...
Ezra 6-8, John 21 • Key Verse: John 21:22 Ever hear of the “law of unintended consequences”? It's the idea that sometimes there are consequences that were neither intended nor expected. Sometimes that happens with establishing precedents. Something is done once and becomes the benchmark by which other similar things...
Ezra 3 – 5, John 20 • Key Verses: John 20:21-22 “When you come to a fork in the road,” Yogi Berra said, “take it.” Not the most coherent piece of advice, but possibly one of the most realistic. We do come to forks in the road of life and...
Ezra 1-2, John 19:23-42 • Key Verses: Ezra 1:5-6 The morning newspaper is not typically encouraging reading for the start of the day, and neither is the evening news for the end of the day! Yet sprinkled among the stories of crimes and severe weather are bits and pieces of...