What are the Epistles?

The Epistles are a group of letters written to Christians during the early years of the church.

Written by Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude, they total twenty one books in the New Testament.

Some are named after the people in the town they were sent to.

These include Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians..

Some are named after the person or people they were sent to.

These include 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.

The rest were named after the person who wrote them.

These include James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.

The author of each Epistle is known except for Hebrews.

No one knows for sure who wrote Hebrews.

 

Most of the Epistles were written to specific churches or people.

Some discussed the specific struggle that particular congregation or person was dealing with as a result of outside situations.

Some addressed conflict within a congregation.

Some offered encouragement within the face of religious persecution and injustice.

Others dealt with false doctrine and the importance of following Jesus’ teaching, not man’s.

Continue reading

Category: God, Lesson Outline, New Testament, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

I Surrender All

There’s an old hymn from the 1890s titled “I Surrender All”.

It is a beautiful song and one of my favorites.

Part of the chorus says, “All to Thee, My Blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

 

I heard and sang that song for years without really understanding what it meant.

I knew what surrender was.

I knew I was committed to Jesus and to living a life that pleased Him.

But, deep down, I was still hanging onto things.

Things I hadn’t given Him yet.

Things I didn’t want to give Him.

Things I didn’t realize I needed to give Him.

 

Then I heard the words no one ever wants to hear, “You have cancer,”

Believe me when I say that will make you think about things you never thought about.

It will also make you look at a lot of things a lot differently.

 

It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I realized there were things I was holding on to that I didn’t know were there.

Unforgiveness. Frustration. Disappointment.

 

The only thing I could do about any of it was to give it to Christ.

Not in some, “Hey this is bothering me” way.

In a deep, honest, get it all out into the open kind of way.

Complete honesty and deep reflection.

Admitting my part in it.

 

It wasn’t easy.

I ugly-cried for days.

Continue reading

Category: Faith, Jesus, Life, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

SOAP Method

I am in an online Bible Study.

One of the things we do is called the SOAP method of study.

At first I didn’t think it would be that helpful, but over time I began to see how much I can learn from it.

 

Here’s how it works:

Grab some paper and a pen.

Choose your verse or passage.

S – Scripture. Write out your chosen Scripture. Copy it straight from the Bible.

O – Observation. What do you see? What information or facts are there? What can you pick out of the verse?

A – Application. How can you apply what you observed.? What should you do or stop doing?

P – Prayer. Write out a prayer asking God to help you apply what you are learning.

 

That’s all it takes.

At face value it seems so simple but if you will take your time and really pay attention to what you are reading you will begin to see deeper truths.

 

Don’t worry if you don’t see them at first.

Just keep going.

The more you do it, the easier it is to see things in the passage.

With time you will begin to better understand the Bible and gain a deeper understanding of His Word.

 

Let me know how it goes.

I’d love to hear how it’s working for you.

 

Happy SOAPing!

 

 

For more on studying Scripture, please visit my page, How to Study the Bible

 

 

 

Category: God, Journaling, Lesson Outline, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

Praying for My Kids

I pray for my kids every day.

I pray for their spiritual and physical safety.

I pray for their jobs, relationships, finances, and friendships.

I pray they will have courage, wisdom, boldness, kindness, peace, grace, and mercy.

I pray they will find favor in tough situations.

I pray they will step up and do what is right; that they will be honest, good people.

I pray they will draw closer to God.

When they mention something going on in their life I pray about that, too.

 

One thing I never, ever pray, though, is for overly specific things.

I never pray they will work this job or move to that place.

I never pray they will make a decision I think they should make or that they will do it one way or the other.

 

Instead, I pray and ask the Father to speak to their heart about which way they should go.

I also pray they will listen to Him and hear His promptings and follow His guidance so they will be in His will.

 

I try as hard as I can to practice this, even when I see them making foolish choices.

As much as I might want to say, “Lord, tell them No! Make them stop! They can’t do that anymore!” I instead ask Him to open their spiritual eyes, speak truth to their heart, and to help them see the choices they are making are hurtful.

Continue reading

Category: Faith, Family, God, Prayer, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Filtering Through Pain

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is how to filter my pain through truth instead of filtering truth through my pain.

See, as humans when we’re hurting we often let our pain color our perception of things, people, and actions around us.

We don’t do it on purpose.

It’s that the pain is there and present and in the forefront of our minds so we tend to lead with that and to perceive things from that perspective.

Whether we’ve been disrespected, lied to, betrayed, stolen from, or experienced any other kind of pain, we tend to see others’ actions as potential for that event to be happening again, even when it’s not.

We assume (sometimes without realizing it) that because a person from our past did us wrong this person will, too.

Unfortunately, when we’re expecting and looking for something we tend to see it, whether it’s there or not.

 

God calls us to a higher standard than that.

Instead of filtering our life experiences through our pain, He calls us to filter them through His Word and Truth.

Regardless of how we feel or what we have experienced, we have to put the truth of Scripture first and foremost in our minds and operate according to it and what it says.

 

That can be hard.

Continue reading

Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Life, Truth | LEAVE A COMMENT

A Woman Died

A woman I know died this week.

Though she was a few years younger than me, she looked my mother’s age.

 

She used to come into the food pantry I served.

I’d tried talking to her a time or two – but she didn’t seem to want to interact.

 

I saw the signs – haunted, darting eyes, gaunt face.

I recognized the smell on her clothes and the sores on her face.

 

She was a meth addict.

 

She was also someone’s mother; someone’s daughter.

 

She was caught up in a hell of her own making.

 

For whatever reason, she never broke free.

 

Now, she’s dead – a victim of her own bad choices.

 

As much as I hated her bad habit, I can’t point a finger.

Continue reading

Category: Addiction, Death, God, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Pick Up Your Cross…

Have you ever heard the phrase, “pick up your cross”?

It’s part of a verse where Jesus says, “pick up your cross and follow Me,”.

This is a good, important thing to do.

It’s one of the basic parts of being a Christian.

 

To pick up our cross means to pick up the practice of obeying Christ and whatever calling He has placed on our life, to choose to lay our self aside, and to follow Him wherever He leads us.

 

Have you ever read the entire verse?

It’s found in Matthew 16:24 and says,

 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. (NIV)

 

Did you catch that?

It says to deny yourself.

 

Too often we try to follow Christ while still doing things our own way and living life on our terms.

Continue reading

Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Obedience, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

On Being Vulnerable

I recently wrote a post on how I like to journal (read it here).

In the post I mentioned being vulnerable before God.

 

Sometimes, we try to hold back and not talk to God about certain things.

Things we’re ashamed of, embarrassed by, hurt from.

 

Here’s the thing. – God already knows about it!

 

Because God is all seeing and all knowing (omniscient), He knows absolutely everything about everyone and everything already.

There are no thoughts we can think that He doesn’t hear.

There is nothing we can do He doesn’t see.

 

So, when we try to hold things back from Him we are only fooling ourselves.

Not only that, all these things we keep holding back from Him are the very things He wants us to bring to Him.

 

Bringing ourselves before the Lord and laying our hearts open can be scary.

Continue reading

Category: God, Journaling, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Good Friday 2026

It’s Good Friday – the day we remember Jesus and how He willingly gave up His life to pay for our sins so we can be reconciled with the Father through His precious blood atonement. .

I praise Him for His sacrifice and thank Him for His immeasurable gift!

 

 “He Himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” He said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Three days later He will rise.” Mark 10:33-34 (NIV)

 

To learn more about Good Friday, please visit my post, What Is Good Friday?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

 

Category: God, Holiday, Jesus | LEAVE A COMMENT

Easter 2026

It’s almost Easter!

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week.

During this week Christians from around the world will remember Jesus and His crucifixion, as they celebrate His resurrection.

I hope you will take time to reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and what it means for us as believers.

 

If you would like to know more about Easter, please check out these links to previous posts:

 

What Is Easter?

What Is Palm Sunday?

What Is Holy Week?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

 

 

 

Category: Death, Holiday, Jesus | LEAVE A COMMENT