April 20, 2022

Growing in Wisdom, Stature, and Favor

Jesus as a Boy in the Temple

The four gospels focus primarily on the public ministry of Jesus leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection – a period of approximately three years. In addition to this, Matthew and Luke include some information about His birth and infancy. Luke also briefly records one event in Jesus’ childhood – the time when He was “lost” in the temple at twelve years old (Luke 2:41-51).

We may be curious about what happened as Jesus grew up, but the Scriptures are mostly silent about this. However, the Holy Spirit did see fit to include a statement about the growth of Jesus:

“And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52).

This may seem somewhat obvious and, therefore, almost insignificant. Yet this statement was given for a reason. If Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor, then it should be expected for us to do the same. In this article, we are going to consider how we can grow in each of these areas.Continue Reading

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September 1, 2021

The Fruit of the Spirit

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

In the passage above, Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit. He listed several characteristics that would be included in this category. Those traits are what the fruit of the Spirit looks like.

He described this as fruit for a reason. Fruit is what grows on a tree or plant of some sort. It does not grow independently; instead, it is a natural product of the life of the plant. In the same way, these characteristics do not spring up independently in our lives; they are the natural product of the Spirit’s influence on our lives. This influence will affect our conduct as we “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) and will impact our decisions as we are “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18).Continue Reading

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March 5, 2019

Add Brotherly Kindness (Season 12, Episode 8)

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Add Brotherly Kindness (Season 12, Episode 8)

In this season, we’re discussing Peter’s admonition to add to your faith (2 Peter 1:5-11).

One of the qualities are are to add to our faith is brotherly kindness. In this episode, we discuss what this is, what it looks like with and without faith, and how we go about adding it to our faith.

If you found this episode to be useful, please share it with others. Also, if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a rating on iTunes or Stitcher. This also helps others hear about the podcast. Thanks.

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May 2, 2012

The Older Women Must Teach the Young Women

Mother, daughter, and baby

In many ways, our society’s norms and values are quite different from those found in the Bible, particularly in regard to the role and responsibilities of women. Paul instructed Titus to teach the older women about what they were to teach to the younger women. These lessons are still needed today.

“Older women likewise are to be… teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored” (Titus 2:3-5).

Paul mentioned seven lessons the older women were to teach to the younger women. Let us consider each one briefly.
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June 10, 2008

Love for Others

David and Mephibosheth

King David has been described as a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). While there are many qualities of David we should emulate, we will focus on one in this article – his love for others.

David showed love for a broad range of people. We can see the love and kindness he shared with his friends – namely Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1; 2 Samuel 1:26). He loved his enemies, even sparing Saul’s life twice when he had opportunity to kill him (1 Samuel 24:1-4; 26:2-11). Both instances came when Saul was pursuing David in order to kill him. We also can see David’s love given to those in need with his example of caring for Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9).
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