I recently heard someone sarcastically compare man’s relationship to God to a cruel game of hide-and-seek where God supposedly hides slightly out of reach and demands to be found. Man is “it”—seeking the ever-elusive God but never able to find or please Him.
What if you looked in a mirror and were unable to recognize yourself? Unfortunately, this type of thing happens. Sometimes traumatic brain injuries or diseases make it difficult for people to recognize faces, even their own. The condition is known as…
1 Thessalonians 2:7–12The church is a family. People enter it by being born into it spiritually. And, as in a family, all members have responsibilities; and their commitment to and love for one another are necessary to create…
Years ago, young people were always afraid of being picked last. The humiliation of standing alone while your peers pondered which team was going to be stuck with you was devastating. Even being picked second to last was…
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Israel My Glory, and we plan to run vintage articles by Victor Buksbazen, the first editor of the magazine and first executive director of The Friends of Israel.
Sitting around a table in Warsaw, Poland, last summer, I listened as our Friends of Israel staff there shared how God worked in their lives to bring them to faith in Christ and eventually into Jewish ministry.
Why did so many people in the Bible do such bad things? Was it okay that God’s people had multiple wives?” a newly saved young mom asked me. I told her the Bible portrays humanity’s sinfulness honestly, but its record of such behavior does not…
There is no other biblical personality that has been made more the butt of harsh and unfair criticism than that of the patriarch Jacob, one of the ancestors of the Jewish race. He is depicted as the cunning supplanter…
1 Thessalonians 2:1–6: The apostle Paul’s abrupt departure from Thessalonica brought accusations that he was a religious charlatan preaching for financial gain and personal honor. If the accusations went unanswered, they…
The scattered stones and ruins of the ancient city of Philippi silently lay in the bright Grecian sun. Standing there, as I scanned the landscape around me, the organized rubble seemed to shout, “This is the place! This is the place…
A pastor’s visit to the Ten Boom house reminds us how the faith of one Christian family preserved many Jewish lives during the Holocaust. We were in the last room on our tour through the Corrie ten Boom Museum…
The wonderful Christmas season will soon be here. It’s a time to celebrate the divinely supernatural, when God did something for humanity that is so spectacular it has to be experienced personally to be understood.
I am Charlie Perry’s great grandson. That fact may not mean much today, but in my small hometown many years ago, it meant plenty. Charles H. Perry was a man of impeccable integrity…
1 Thessalonians 1:9–10: When the Thessalonians received Jesus Christ as their Savior, they experienced a thrilling transformation. They were completely delivered from the darkness and depravity of paganism and anxiously…
I was fully prepared to breeze over a July 14 article in theguardian.com headlined “Ghostbusters in line for China ban due to supernatural theme.” But I read it, and I’m glad I did…
Have you ever heard of the Yazoo land scandal of 1795? Apparently, it is considered “the most corrupt deal in American history,” according to historynewsnetwork.org…
What do you do when the Bible says one thing and the government says another? Follow the principle the apostle Peter gave us. A significant parade of years has passed since my grammar school days…
1 Thessalonians 1:5–8: The apostle Paul did not preach on the power of positive thinking to the Thessalonians. He did not use skillful oratory, philosophical arguments, clever expressions, or…
Israel’s wise King Solomon, with years of world-watching behind him, concluded, “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9)…
1 Thessalonians 1:2–4: When kindness is shown to someone, the usual response is to say thank you. No New Testament writer other than Paul expressed thankfulness to his fellow Christians…
During its formative years, the church was entirely Jewish, as Jewish people by the thousands recognized Jesus as their long-promised Messiah. But by the end of the apostle Paul’s first missionary journey…
Christians are to honor God’s holiness by keeping His commandments. But what about gray areas where the Bible is silent? In those cases, followers of Jesus must not offend their consciences or those of other believers…
Youcef Nadarkhani, 38, is an Iranian-Christian pastor. He spent three years in prison and was sentenced to death by hanging on charges of apostatizing from Islam and evangelizing Muslims. Although released in September 2012, he was…
Every year Christians pause to remember an event that changed history. Whether you call it Easter or Resurrection Sunday, it is a day of rejoicing, when we gather together in churches around the…
I was in 10th grade U.S. History class when we got to the chapter on World War II and learned about Hitler and the Nazis. To me, the Second World War was just a misty history that happened…
Christian liberty is a gift from God. Scripture says Christians are free to practice whatever God’s moral absolutes do not prohibit (Gal. 2:4; 5:1), providing they do not violate their own consciences (Rom. 14:22–23)…
Four thousand years ago, God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees (southern Iraq) to the land of Canaan (Israel) and made him an awesome promise…
A few miles from my boyhood home, just off a dusty country road, sits a little orange brick church. The tattered curtains sway in and out…
3 John 5–14: Third John focuses on three men, two of whom—Gaius and Diotrephes—were church leaders. Gaius was a committed servant, full of love and truth, and given to hospitality…
Christians should live according to God’s universal guidelines of conduct through the power of the Holy Spirit. Part one examined the fi rst guideline. Here are three more.
Since June 26, when five Supreme Court justices issued their majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the millennia-old idea of religious freedom in America has…
Tears streamed down Sandy Yao’s face as she stood by her mother’s bed. God felt so far away. She had trusted His Son as her Savior. She believed God had opened the door…
3 John 1–4: Churches are like families: full of members with differing personalities, dispositions, and temperaments. Some members are friendly, loving, truthful, generous, and hospitable…
Have you ever wondered why genuine Christians differ in their opinions on the morality of certain conduct? Some sincere Christians believe…
Do you ever feel like you want to do something to help Israel in addition to praying? That was how we felt when we started the Israel Relief Fund many years ago.
A few months ago, the husband of one of my dearest friends died of a heart attack while eating lunch. One minute he was alive; the next, he wasn’t. My friend told me the ambulance arrived…
Imagine a Jewish father singing to his children, “My help comes from the Lᴏʀᴅ, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber…
Mayhem is everywhere. This motto is used by one of America’s biggest insurance companies. The television commercial portrays “mayhem” in the form of a man running amok…
Situated at the midpoint of the Psalms of Ascents, Psalm 127 is didactic, or instructional, and is attributed to King Solomon. Confronting the reality of daily existence, it motivates readers to…
A steady stream of families paraded across the stones and steps that marked the path to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. I sat nearby as they carried canopies, banners, and balloons…
From their sojourn in Egypt to their days in Europe during Hitler’s Third Reich to today, the Jewish people have been afflicted. Yet against all odds, this tiny group of people…
If there is one thing we all share, it’s trouble. My Jewish friends often use the Yiddish word tsuris. I remember one day in 2010 that dumped a tremendous amount of tsuris on me. I learned…
Psalm 131 is a song of humility. This Song of Ascents was composed by King David. Though one of the shortest psalms, it is also one of the most poignant. David composed it while experiencing severe challenges and inner turmoil, perhaps when…
Psalm 132 is the longest of all the Songs of Ascents and focuses on worship, which the nation of Israel modeled after the experience of its greatest king and worship leader…
Hine ma tov u’ma-nayim, shevet ach-im gam ya-chad. These Hebrew words are familiar to anyone who attends synagogue regularly. “Behold, how good and how pleasant…
When God blesses something, He bestows on it life and goodness. During creation, God only blessed living things; He did not bless the sun, moon, or stars. After He created Adam and Eve…
2 John 5–13: All Christians should obey biblical truth and manifest love, as taught by Jesus Christ. The “elect lady and her children,” whom the apostle John mentioned in his second epistle, lived observably according to these commandments…
The global campaign to eliminate Christianity and the followers of Jesus Christ is as diverse as it is unrelenting. In the Middle East and Africa, ISIS Islamists have reverted to…
2 John 1:1–4: A major problem in the first-century church was the proliferation of false teachers. Under the inspiration and leading of the Holy Spirit, the apostle John…
Humanity’s refusal to accept God’s wisdom has led people to reject His moral absolutes. Consequently, individuals engage in practices that violate what God ordained for mankind. They commit…
Many years ago I had a wonderful friend who truly loved Jewish people. She was a devout Christian who had come to Christ later in life from a Greek Orthodox background and…
The great American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but…
As a child, I had a favorite teacher who skillfully arranged biblical characters on colorful backdrops of desert sand, tents, or a palm-covered oasis. Drawing our attention to…
Anyone who has read the story of Abraham would agree he was an ordinary man who was made extraordinary by faith. He stands out in Scripture as a stellar figure whom Judaism calls…
Abraham is the only person in the Old Testament called the “friend” of God (Isa. 41:8; Jas. 2:23). In the New Testament, he is listed as an ancestor of Jesus Christ (Mt. 1:1) and…
Reading the biblical account of Abraham’s life is like watching a tightrope walker who steps onto a thin wire to traverse cavernous depths. The slightest misstep can bring disaster. Counted as…
The foundation, or beginning, of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Ps. 111:10). Unfortunately, large segments of humanity do not fear the Lord and have no true wisdom. Instead…
“To be absent from the body [is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). I thought of that verse when I received word that our beloved and longtime colleague, Zvi Kalisher, had passed away…
When I was reading the book of Obadiah awhile back, I felt it offered so many good principles for everyday living that I thought you might enjoy an entire issue on it. Many months later, as I was preparing…
Obadiah 1–4: When the apostle Paul wrote to his young protégé Timothy to tell him how to pastor the church at Ephesus, he cautioned him not to give too much responsibility to…
Pride is a matter of the heart. In both Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the Old and New Testaments respectively, the words pride and proud denote an arrogance, a puffing up…
Obadiah 15–16: Have you ever seen someone revel in another’s misfortune or be smug and self-satisfied when sympathy was called for? There’s a saying, “What goes around comes around.” The Bible…
1 John 5:1–12: The apostle John used the word overcomer more than any New Testament writer when speaking of the Christian’s victorious life in Christ (1 Jn. 5:4–5)…
The Bible teaches that the foundation, or beginning, of genuine wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Unwise people spurn the fear of the Lord by neglecting God’s moral absolutes…
In a life spent traveling and meeting hosts of people from all walks of life, I’ve found that few individuals leave an enduring legacy. Such a legacy was left by a person of small stature but…
I first met Zvi Kalisher in 1977 on The Friends of Israel’s first tour to Israel. We had just arrived in Jerusalem, and that evening Zvi shared an hour-long testimony. I left the meeting saying…
I was privileged and blessed to have two believing parents in the Lord Jesus. The most important heritage they gave us was a biblical and spiritual education and guidance…
Considering all of the difficulties he faced as a Holocaust survivor and a moneyless, unemployed immigrant in a precarious Israel, Zvi Kalisher had every reason to become…
My wife and I first met Zvi in 1978 at a Friends of Israel (FOI) banquet in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He was the highlight of the evening. His life story, ZVI, by Elwood McQuaid, had just…
1 John 4:7–21: If one thing is glaringly missing in the life of many Christians today, it is the expression of Christian love. Throughout the First Epistle of John, the apostle John emphasized…
The Bible calls attention to several problems with false wisdom, which, in reality, is not wisdom at all. After Babylon had manifested great pride in abusing the Israelites during their 70-year…
“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson, but your life insurance application was rejected.” When I asked why, the agent explained: “On the questionnaire, your answer about travel said you are going…
1 John 4:1–6: First-century believers were often inundated with heretical doctrine from people whom the Bible identifies as false teachers and false prophets. At that time…
God gave Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar a dream that disturbed he could not sleep. Then God revealed to Daniel the dream’s content and meaning. This article explains…
1 John 3:11–24: In 1 John 3:10, the apostle John declared, “Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” These strong words…
This article provides more examples of God’s distribution of wisdom. Nebuchadnezzar, the crown prince of Babylon, came to Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem in August 605 BC.
1 John 3:4–10: The First Epistle of John teaches that people who are truly born again are children of God and will practice righteousness (2:29), keeping themselves pure from sin…
Proverbs 2:6–7 states, “The Lᴏʀᴅ gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.” However, the Bible also reveals…
1 John 3:1–3: God’s redemptive program began with His love for fallen humanity. Those who have been “born of Him” (1 Jn. 2:29) by faith in Jesus Christ manifest this…
Webster’s New International Dictionary defines wise as “discerning and judging soundly concerning what is true or false, proper or improper.” It defines wisdom as the…
1 John 2:18–29: At the inception of his epistle, the apostle John declared, “God is light” (1 Jn. 1:5). He said people who walk in God’s light abide in fellowship with Him.
Our previous article showed that the apostle Paul was consumed by the transforming reality of God’s grace. Many times Paul used the word grace in his epistles to the…
Have you ever wished you could return to the purity of the first-century Christian church, when there were no denominational differences and all believers were simply called…
Apostasy is nothing new. Although it may seem worse today than in previous years, it has been around almost forever; and it reaps God’s judgment. An apostate is one who departs from…
On the evening of January 13, 2012, the luxurious cruise ship Costa Concordia was sailing off the coast of the Tuscan Island of Giglio when, without warning, it struck mountainous…
The short epistle of Jude is a scathing denunciation of false teachers and their immoral doctrines. It portrays them as evil individuals who worm their way into churches even though…
In days gone by it was common for parents to resort to washing their children’s mouths out with soap as punishment for using foul language. Gutter talk, locker-room jokes, bathroom humor…
So many churches and Christian organizations are facing crises in their leadership. Godly leadership is critical if Christians are to grow in Christ and glorify Him. Here are four principles of godly…
One of the many wonderful things about the Bible is how full it is of real people and their real struggles. It is not a sterile Book. God clothed His truth in skin through the hundreds of…
1 John 2:12–17: In this section, John assured his readers of his confidence in their salvation (vv. 12–14); and he instructed them to guard against loving the world and becoming part of its…
We saw that the word translated “testify” refers to “an emphatic affirmation that a thing is or will be so.” The word translated “gospel” means “good news.” A commission is “an authoritative order”…
I was watching a television talk show one evening that centered on a discussion between the host, a well-known skeptic, and a spokesman for the “evangelical” left. Political and social issues…
In football lore, it is the Greatest Game Ever Played. On December 28, 1958, in front of 64,185 freezing spectators who filled Yankee Stadium in New York City and another 45 million television viewers…
1 John 2:3–11: It is easy for someone to say, “I know God”; but what does that really mean? First John 2:3–11 provides three tests or evidences of what it means to know God and be in…
In Acts 20:24 the apostle Paul referred to his purpose in life: “that I may finish my race with joy.” The Greek word translated finish means “to fulfill” or to carry out “a required course in…
1 John 2:1–2: God is light (1 Jn. 1:5). Light defines and describes God’s true nature and symbolizes His purity, character, and glory. To have true fellowship with God, Christians must…
Because of God’s grace, the church was able to grow. This article on the grace of God in the New Testament will observe how God, through grace, administered His eternal, moral absolutes over…
In March our Up to Jerusalem tour visited The Jerusalem Great Synagogue. It was a highlight of our trip to the only city in the world where God has chosen to place His name. Even Jesus…
As I sat in the pew at church a few Sundays ago, the speaker read a verse from 1 Samuel that struck me as the explanation for why we in America find ourselves in the condition…
Parenting is not easy. Over the years we may excuse some infractions, but we must punish our children’s blatant disobedience. So it was in the days of the prophet Jeremiah. The Israelites…