FrontLine
Straight Cuts: “The Just Shall Live by Faith” (Habakkuk 2:4b)
Mike Harding This inspired text penned by the ancient prophet Habakkuk is quoted three times by two NT authors. In the NT, the prophet’s profound utterance comprises the “soul of Pauline theology.”1 Boice comments, “This is a great text. It could even be called the great text of the Bible. To understand it is to…
Read MoreAre You Getting a Call from God?
John Vaughn Imagine a young person who is considering doing something wrong, when suddenly he receives a cell phone call from a Christian friend inviting him to do something right. Now, imagine yourself facing temptation and at that very moment getting a call from God. That is essentially what Paul is teaching in 1 Thessalonians…
Read MoreDo You Really Want to Be a Slave to Sin?
Rand Hummel This Is What God Says He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. (Prov. 7:22, 23)…
Read MoreThe Good Shepherd is the Forgiver of My Sin
Sandy Hartman Be a Forgetful Forgiver Forgetfulness is rarely a quality that people are proud to possess. Frequently, forgetfulness is associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s or the beginning of senility. In other scenarios people ascribe it to a lack of character or low intelligence (and to the person doing the forgetting, it can certainly…
Read MoreThe Good Shepherd is the Creator of the Heavens
Stephen Caesar How Old Are the Stars? One of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of skeptics who reject young-universe Creationism has been the alleged great antiquity of the stars. As scientists currently date them, stars appear to be far older than would allow for a Biblical age of the universe. However, new, refined, technologically…
Read MoreChristmas Cookies in an Empty Coffee Can
Volker Stoeckmann I sat listening intently as a middle-aged widow, the mother of four, taught us Bible stories in her broken English. She made the Bible come to life for my impressionable young mind as she pulled figures of Moses, Daniel, Ruth, John the Baptist, and the Christ-child out from the pages of her Bible…
Read MoreProvidence in the Incarnation of Christ (1)
Layton Talbert The following is an excerpt from the book, Not by Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God (Greenville, S.C.: BJU Press, 2001). Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle make little sense by themselves. Each by itself is unfinished, incomplete. Each raises questions that can be answered only as it is fitted into its proper…
Read MorePraying Biblical Prayers
Layton Talbert [A previous column concluded] with a variety of suggested prayer “exercises”—methods for making our prayers more Scriptural. Why is this necessary? Paul testifies that there are times when “we know not what we should pray for as we ought,” when we are aided by the secret intercessory work of the Spirit of God.…
Read MoreThank God for Israel
FrontLine: November/December 2016 | VOLUME 26 | NUMBER 6 Editorial No doubt you have seen the ads in FrontLine over the years for Pastors’ Tours to Israel. Many pastors who have taken tours with us in conjunction with Shalom Ministries have followed up with Shalom tours sponsored by their churches. In January 2018, Lord willing,…
Read MoreStraight Cuts: Just How Friendly Should We Be? (Proverbs 18:24)
Randy Jaeggli Perhaps you have had an experience like mine. I listened as the preacher announced his text and read Proverbs 18:24 from the Authorized Version: “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” The ensuing message stressed the necessity of the believer…
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