# Light of the Cross (Page 2)

Sleeping with the Enemy When the men of God got into bed with the women of Ashdod, the children born to that union spoke any other language but that of the men of God (Nehemiah 13:23-24).When Christianity got into bed with Emperor Constantine, the children born to that union spoke any other language but that of Christ.Israel of old was God’s exclusive nation. Intermarriage with the Philistines brought their pagan ways into the family.The Church is Christ’s exclusive Kingdom. Getting…

Looking after yourself—Number One. Brian is a lawn-mowing contractor and a good friend of mine. He is all muscle and has never carried an extra ounce of weight. However, with near lethal high blood pressure readings and extreme cholesterol numbers, this 58 year-old man had to change some things. He was told to cut back on the junk food and was handed the customary cocktail of pills to cover all the bases. All seems to be well, so far—Praise the…

Choose a Side—It matters! Not so long ago my whole life was laid out in photo albums, in awkward stories remembered by my siblings, in snapshots from my first trips away from home, and in all those exciting stories of my glories and defeats I repeated to my kids (before they were old enough to question the facts). Back then I thrilled my family with my newfound knowledge of world affairs at the dinner table – that’s the way I…

Church Attendance – You can’t say that! I sat in a foreign country years ago talking with a couple at a restaurant. The wife spoke openly about her ‘Church experience.’ She said that she had grown up in the Lord’s church but had given up attending. When I asked her why, she said, “Whenever I go to church, I get the pip.” (That’s an old English expression meaning that one is annoyed or irritated). Having had already met the good…

Giving—“He’s a preacher, he had to say that!” I have a photo of our church’s last remaining contribution plate sitting at the bottom of a rubbish bin. The bin was brand new and the plate very shiny, so it usually takes a viewer a few seconds to work out what it is in the photo. We have used cloth contribution bags at our congregation for many years now, but the sooner they go the way of collection plates, the happier…

Sing—In Harmony with God. Nashville, Tennessee, is a city worth exploring. One quick visit is not enough. On my first visit in 1989 I found myself in the balcony of the (new) Grand Old Opry. Not at a Country Music concert, but at a special Sunday night church service attended by hundreds of members of the churches of Christ. It was my first time to enjoy the Word of God being preached amongst so many brethren, and to join in…

Prayer – Learning how! I was in a little church in Mississippi in 1999 and one of the teenage boys did the “Opening Prayer.” I had met him earlier and had sat in Bible class with him and all the other men. The congregation preferred the King James Version, so everyone sat armed with their KJVs. The men took turns reading from the Bible, but when it came to this young man, he struggled. Not just with the art of…

Preach the Word–Or the Bad Guys Will. With each passing week we hear news of politicians and governments rendering decisions that are said to be driving us to the brink of destruction. They may me right, I know not. But I do know that God’s warnings to Israel of old sound as if they could be written for today.Six hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Isaiah preached to a religious leadership that had become rotten to the core. Imagine Isaiah…

Fellowship There is an old Christian conspiracy joke about backmasking which asks: “What message do you hear if you play an Amy Grant song backwards?” The answer being: “Go to church, go to church, go to church…”My guess is that many a church is starting to wonder if that message might have to preached ‘forward’ to the conscientious mind, and not rely on subliminal messages—especially those imagined through backmasked 1980s records. In my experience, churches are sensitive to the needs…

Baptism I arrived at Bible College as I was turning twenty-one. I’d been a Christian for four and a half years and I was desperate to build on my ‘vast wealth of knowledge and experience.’ I was teachable, but probably not aware of how much I had to learn (some things are only obvious in hindsight). In that first class of the first intake of students at the then ‘South Pacific School of Biblical Studies,’ sat another man—one Roger Kennedy.…