Words from a Branch

  You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.   But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3:17-18 ESV              There is an ever-present danger that the true saints will be carried off in the errors of those who claim to be saints and are not. Here Peter calls such people lawless, indicating that they are marked by a lack of submission to the commands of Christ. This is further supported by the end of verse 16 which states that these same twist scriptures bending it to their foolish ends rather than yielding themselves to its ultimate authority. Now if one would dare even to tamper with God’s holy word, what manipulations would they reframe from?           ...

  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 ESV                 The very first character introduced in the Bible is God, and He enters the narrative at center stage. Rather, He is at the center of everything when everything else enters around Him. It is God who begins the cosmos, and sets in motion the story of which we are all a part. He performs the initial action, with purpose. He begins, and He continues. He is the first to be in the story for it is His story, He started it, and will see it through. He is by right, and by all reason, and by revelation at the very center of all things. He shall be the central figure when this story is ended, and the better story begun.                 This centrality is established in the first sentence of the Bible, it is the first demand of right theology, and the...

Blessed is the man   who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord , and on his law he meditates day and night.   He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so,   but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment,   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,   but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm 1 ESV The critical definition of the righteous in this psalm is the one who delights in God’s word, and meditates on it all the time. We have become use to the eastern idea of meditation in which one tries to empty the mind, but the Christian idea of meditation is quite the opposite being a focused and intent thoughtf...