Week 11: James and the Fatherless Day 4: Not for the Faint of Heart (James 1:6-8) What does faith look like in an orphan ministry? The circumstances surrounding faith are rarely pretty. They are rarely simple. But somehow, they always seem to suddenly break out into something glorious, like a brilliant sunrise bursting into the …
NT 10:4 The Work of Experience and Hope
Week 10, Part II: James and the Fatherless Day 4: The Work of Experience and Hope (James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-6, Proverbs 13:12; Psalm 39:7) “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” Proverbs 13:12a No one likes disappointment. You hope for something and you hope for something and then — It doesn’t happen. You don’t get the …
NT 10:2 The Audience And The Servant
Week 10, Part II: James and the Fatherless Day 2: The Audience and the Servant (James 1:1) As we reach the last part of our look at the New Testament and the fatherless, we come to the only book in which the fatherless are actually mentioned by name in the entire second half of the …
NT 9:5 The Process And Price Of Adoption
Week 9: The New Testament and Adoption Day 5: The Process and Price of Adoption – (Ephesians 1:3-14) I love the book of Ephesians. If you could get a peek at my Bible, you might think that a pink ink pen had blown up all over the first half of the book. It used to …
NT 9:4 Adoption And The Law
Week 9: The New Testament and Adoption Day 4: Adoption and the Law – (Romans 10:14; Galatians 4:1-10) Over the years, I have come in contact with several children who made very puzzling decisions. They had, up to that point, been brought up either on the streets or in very bad home environments. Suddenly, they …
NT 7:2 Growing Up, Part 1
Week 7: The New Testament and Children Cont’d Day 2: Growing Up, Part I – Galatians 4:19; Ephesians 4:13,14; 1 Corinthians 14:20; 13:11; 3:1-3; Hebrews 5:12-14; 1 Peter 2:2; Matthew 18:3 When I was ten or eleven years old, my family met a family whose child would never grow up. I don’t mean that she …
NT 6:2 Simply Scandalous
Week 6: The New Testament and Children Day 2: Simply Scandalous – Matthew 18:6,9 Understanding what Jesus truly meant when He spoke of receiving children has an enormous effect on the next few verses of Matthew 18. (Look back here.) It is amazing how many times I have heard each of the first three sections …
NT 6:1 A Child In The Midst
Week 6: The New Testament and Children Day 1: A Child in the Midst – Matthew 18:2-5; Mark 9:33-37; Luke 9:46-48 Along the way, the disciples began arguing among themselves about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I’m always a little amazed that they actually got up the courage to ask …
OT 8:1 Stopping the Fatherless Pandemic
Week 8 – Lessons from the Prophets Cont’d Day 1 – Esther Cont’d – Stopping the Fatherless Pandemic: Esther 2:10; Proverbs 22:6 Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.” That Mordecai took this to heart can be plainly …
OT 7:5 Mordecai’s Care
Week 7 – Lessons from the Prophets Cont’d Day 5 – Esther Cont’d – Mordecai’s Care: Esther 2:7,11 “And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his …
