Posts by John Staiger (Page 47)

I have lamented previously about the famine before us. I sincerely pray that I am absolutely wrong in my assessment that there is a massive shortage of preachers in the Lord’s church. If my perception is correct today, I fear the impact of this lack upon the future. Now, I am not about to start telling God his business. For all I know He may have an army of men ready to take the world for Christ – I pray…

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows” (Malachi 3:10). The test was a simple one: “If each Israelite gave God what He asked for—ten per cent of their income for the work of the Levites, priests and temple services—He…

For a woman to be called “a Jezebel” is a serious matter. It is a name synonymous with “adulterous,” and a reputation that no one would want to stick to a good woman. In Revelation chapter two, the adulterous woman in the church in Thyatira is labelled, “Jezebel.” Such was the evil nature of Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, that her name had become a byword. I have my doubts that Jezebel’s final demise has been discussed in Sunday School…

Michal loved David. On one of the occasions that her father, King Saul, tried to have David killed, she helped him escape. Michal, wondering what would become of her beloved, looked down in fear from the window from which she had just lowered him (1Sam.19). Years later Michal would again look down on David from a window. By this time, however, she had grown to despise him in her heart. He had danced before the Ark of God as it…

Netflix and their compatriots are spoilt for choice when seeking plots about the transforming nature of money. Everyone knows a story about someone who was made and then ruined, by money. The central point of such plots is that money takes everything down with it, with rare exceptions. The wealthiest of this world live lives that most of us will never see into, let alone enter. So why would the prophet, Jeremiah, send a personal warning to the wealthy of…

I was walking the dog recently, when a car came to a screeching halt in front of a house I was about to walk past. The three occupants were obviously gang members. They were about to get out of the car to approach the house, but stopped when they saw me and the dog…so I thought. In fact, what actually made them think twice about getting out of the car was the homeowner. He suddenly came charging down his drive…

I met a young man (somewhere in his 20s) who mows lawns for a living. I was surprised when he told me that he has three university degrees. He laughed and said, “While I am trying to find a position in my specialised field of botany, my mother still expects me to pay rent.” I was reminded of others with equal numbers of letters following their names, but none, that I recall, with the humility or hard work inherent in…

The last words of William Tyndale were, “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes.” The impact of Tyndale’s words is only felt when we realise that he spoke them while tied to a stake, and about to be strangled, and then burned. His crime? Translating the Bible into English. His death (6 October 1536) was testimony to his undying belief that translating the Living Word of God into the language of his fellow Englishmen was worth dying for. When contemplating…

The fact that I do not like suffering, may say more about me than I would otherwise care to admit. I have suffered for the cause of Christ in various ways, but compared to Christ, the prophets, the apostles, and the other selfless martyrs over the centuries, I am yet to begin. Paul suffered much for the gospel. He knew pain and privation, and he gloried in it. As far as he was concerned, he was living to expend every…

There are always bad motives behind bad doctrines. But scratch the surface and it generally adds up to either apathy (the bad doctrine became a tradition), or the struggle for power and control inherent in maintaining the status quo. False teachers were quick to challenge apostolic authority by teaching that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Which causes us to ask, given that the resurrection of Christ is the cornerstone doctrine of the church, how could it have been…