Anyone who thinks that the Bible is chauvinistic or prejudiced against women has just not been reading it. Some of the highest marks of praise in the book of God are ascribed to women. Esther is said to have “found favor in the eyes of all who saw her” (Esther 2:15). Ruth is called “a woman of excellence” (Ruth 3:11). And what better commendation could be given than

The Bible, because it came from God and is for man, gets at the very heart of who and what we are. It doesn’t dilly-dally; it tells us what we need to know about ourselves without venire or camouflage. It plays no favorites, excludes no one, treats us all alike.

Salvation is the theme of the Bible. Even before the world began and man was created, God, knowing that man would sin, devised a plan for his salvation (Eph. 3:9-11). The death of Christ was the plan by which He purposed to accomplish that salvation (Isaiah 53). He died for our transgressions and thereby is the progenitor of our salvation.

David has a new toy. Actually, several new toys. It’s a bag of little cowboys and Indians, the plastic ones with their guns drawn and bows raised. He likes to set them up and knock them down. Actually, he likes me to spend ten minutes standing all the figures up only for him to come along and demolish them in a matter of seconds. We’re getting a lot of new fun out of an old conflict. Actually, he is.

Do you have any idea how very blessed you are if you’re a Christian?

Progress is part of life—and a vital part at that. Fact is, where there is no progress, there is concern about the situation. And with good reason, for lack of progress indicates that something is wrong. For instance, if a business is not progressing, people are concerned. If children don’t make progress in their education, parents are concerned.

It was still dark outside. I was trying to get out of the house without waking anybody up. Once I got to the garage, I figured I was home free. But I dropped my keys on the floor, and when I raised up, I hit my head on the bottom shelf with a loud thud. My first thought? “I didn’t know the devil got up this early.”

“We search the world for truth; we cull the good, the pure, the beautiful, from graven and written scroll, from all old flower fields of the soul. And, weary seekers of the best, we come back, laden from our quest to find that all the sages said, is in the book our mothers read” (John Greenleaf Whittier).

How true. How very true. Man’s wisdom—all of it, if it has any value—is merely a restatement of the Divine will, the word of God. We search hither and yon for some new kernel of truth only to find we had it right on our coffee table all the time.

I am, in many ways, still a child. I just happen to be a child who is also a parent. Scary thought, isn’t it? But caring for my own children has, among many other things, increased my appreciation and love for my own father and mother.

One of the truly expressive figures used to describe the church of our Lord is the terminology, household of God. The implications of that metaphor are several and very expressive. It calls to mind family, relations, kinspeople, home and hearth, and all that is connected to these great terms.