Of Whom Shall I Fear?

Most of you will recall the story (I Kings 18) in the Old Testament where the prophet Elijah challenged the gods of Israel. The 450 prophets of the god Baal were to pray to him and Elijah was to pray to Jehovah God to send fire to burn up a sacrifice. All day the prophets prayed to their god with no results. Then Elijah prayed to Jehovah God and fire fell and burned up the sacrifice, not stopping until the wood, the stones, the soil, and even the water were burned up by the fire of the one true God. The people were amazed and worshipped Jehovah as the one true God;

Fruitfulness Through Suffering

In the 41st chapter of the book of Genesis, we read the following:

 Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. ⁵¹ Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh^[e] and said, “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” ⁵² The second son he named Ephraim^[f] and said, “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

For any of you who aren’t familiar with the story of Joseph, let me just summarize it for you..

Hope without Action is Wishful Thinking

             Someone much wiser than I stated recently that hope is an action verb. In reality, hope can be used as a noun or a verb. But most often I think we see it used as a verb as in, “I hope you’re calling with good news.” No action is required here on the part of the one doing the hoping; it’s just wishful thinking...

Robes Made By Dorcas

Acts 9:36-42

Dorcus, a word which means “Gazelle”, was sometimes called Tabitha. She was a very kind person who spent her time caring for the widows of Joppa. The story takes place in the time of the early church right after Saul’s conversion.

Tabitha, it is not known whether she was a widow or not, could have been the leader or overseer of the local widows or she may have been a dear friend who cared for them. What is clear is that she did many good things for others. We are going to study what happened in Joppa when Tabitha took ill and died.  This is where the story gets exciting...