Any society based on shared commitments and aims must have the right to discipline itself. If there are stated principles, rules of conduct, goals, and commitments, and then some were to seek from within to destroy those goals or commitments, then any kind of self-contained committed group or society must have the power and commitment to discipline itself.

The inward experience of conversion is sometimes referred to as the new birth (John 3:3–8). New birth refers to a change so radical that it can be described only by the figure of birth into a new life. Just as an infant enters the physical world with a totally new existence, so conversion is a new spiritual beginning in a person’s relationship to God.

Paul’s metaphor expressed his conviction that a morally disordered life is diseased, and stands in need of treatment by the law.

As Christians, we should always be horrified by evil, but never surprised by it. This verse says each generation of evil will be worse than the previous.

Christians ought to assemble in local gatherings here on earth. Apparently this privilege and responsibility was not immediately obvious to some of the early Christians since they still needed to be exhorted not to forsake ‘the assembling of themselves together.’ (Hebrews 10:25)

The nature of the Church was not clear until the Apostle Paul was led by God to be the medium of the full revelation of the church as the body of Christ. Ephesians 3:1–7.

God’s Spirit does not always strive with man. There can come a point in a persons life when over and over they have heard about Christ and have rejected Him over and over, and God will stop calling, then it will be impossible for them to believe.

The key to a Christian’s joy is its source, which is the Lord. If Christ is in me and I am in Him, that relationship is not a sometimes experience. Even if the Christian cannot rejoice in current circumstances, he/she can still rejoice in Christ. The peace of God sustains us during times of hardship.

The world thought it was passing judgment on Jesus, at the cross. In reality, the cross was passing judgment on them.

Let us be careful in our own fickleness, to believe we are “committed to Jesus” when He knows we are not. As it was for the Jews that Jesus spoke to that day, it is the same with us.