In the letter to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3:7-13, we read the second of two letters that contains only praise and encouragement from Jesus for the church. Although the church in Philadelphia looked weak, it was actually strong, because it had done the one simple thing that all churches and all Christians must do: keep Christ’s word. Jesus’ instruction to them (and to us) was correspondingly simple: hold on to what you have.
The closing section of the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas moved from confusion to clarification to conflict to consolidation to celebration.
Believers can rejoice with shouts of praise, because God is the king over all the nations.
Because the early Christians were accused falsely of all sorts of outrageous behavior, Peter urged his readers in I Peter 2:11-25 to be especially...