Far too many Christians have lost sight of the biblical doctrine of vocation—what the Bible teaches regarding the importance of labour. Each Christian is responsible for the business of work. But if we do not appreciate the value of work, the losses can be tragic. For one thing, we will be tempted to steal.

The verse is straightforward: The Christian is to stop stealing (v. 28a), to start sweating (v. 28b), and to start sharing (v. 28c).

Jesus told people that He was meek and lowly in heart, and centuries before He walked to earth, the prophet Isaiah foretold the meekness of Messiah. In Isaiah 42:1–9, we learn about the supremacy of His meekness.

Anger is a legitimate, God-given emotional response to perceived wrong. Anger and wrath are referenced in the Bible over six hundred times—and most of these are with reference to God. The Bible, it can appropriately be said, is an angry book.

Anger is part and parcel of our existence. Paul seems to be acknowledging this in Ephesians 4:26–27. But his message is simple: Put off sinful anger (v. 26a), put on self-control (v. 26b), and put in sound thinking (v. 27).

If lying is perhaps the most destructive sin in our world, anger may well be second. Anger has caused a lot of damage, and Christians are not immune from it. Paul therefore urges Christians, in Ephesians 4:26–27, to “cool it.”

The community of faith is to be a community of trust (v. 25) and a community of peace (vv. 26–27). The community of faith is an emotionally righteous, rather than an emotionally raging, community. In the church, there are plenty of occasions for anger; we must be careful how we respond.

There’s a point to penitence. When a believer becomes sensitised to their sin, and then does something about it, they benefit eternally and find ultimate relief.

In much of the world, interracial marriage, for the most part, has historically been frowned upon. In fact, in both SA and the USA there was a time when it was not only socially taboo but in fact illegal. The laws, thankfully, have been changed, but for many—including many in the church—it is still taboo.

The question we must address is whether opposition to interracial marriage is biblically justified. If it is, then we must oppose it. But if not, then we are wrong to oppose it. More to the point, if it is biblical then we should celebrate it. We should perhaps even promote it.

Integrity: It’s an important word—and a most neglected concept. In Eden, the lying serpent literally spoke with a forked tongue, and to this day all our tongues have been tainted with the slithering propensity to falsehood—such as lying, slander, deceit, manipulation, cooked books, and broken vows.

But what is so common in the world should never be so in the church. Paul tells us so in Ephesians 4:25. By the power of the gospel, the Christian has been translated from the domain of falsehood to the domain of truth. And we are to live like it.

Paul’s concern here is for the community of faith (4:1–16), and perhaps what is of fundamental importance for the community of faith is that we be a community of trust.

We as a people can look at the works of others and appreciate their creativity. As we look at 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 we can appreciate how great and wondrous God through Jesus Christ is at changing us. He makes the old, once loved by and found in Christ, to become new creations.

Psalm 3 is an individual lament in which the psalmist expresses confidence in personal and individual deliverance by God. As the psalmist looked over the multitude of his enemies, his eyes of faith were focused on the Lord, who grants His beloved sleep. In his prayer he expresses confidence that the Lord would deliver him and, through this, restore His blessing to His people.

Jeremiah 17:12–18 records the third of Jeremiah’s five “confessions.” In it, we see that he was not going to abandon his prophetic functions simply because he had been persecuted. Instead he prayed for grace to withstand opposition until the truth should be manifested, when all would see that it was God’s word, not his own, that he had been proclaiming faithfully.