Category Archives: Bible Stories

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June 5, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, God's Plan, Miracles, Trusting God

LUCK

We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall. [Proverbs 16:33 (NLT)]

blue-eyed daisyWhenever we play Yahtzee, my younger grands blow on the dice to ensure their good luck. Like Yahtzee, life often seems a game of chance where sometimes we’re lucky and sometimes we’re not. Luck, however, has nothing to do with it. For example, King Ahab seemed to have incredibly bad luck when a soldier randomly shot an arrow and accidently hit him right between the joints of his armor. In spite of appearances, however, that wasn’t because of Ahab’s bad luck. Before going into battle, God had pronounced the evil king’s doom through His prophet Micaiah.

It wasn’t luck that caused the sleepless King Xerxes to read about Mordecai saving his life just moments before the evil Haman wanted a death sentence pronounced on the Jew. It was God’s hand that caused the king’s insomnia and turned his attention to that specific event in Babylon’s history. It wasn’t just a lucky break that, out of all the fields in Bethlehem, the widowed Ruth ended up gleaning in the fields of Boaz (who just happened to be Naomi’s kinsman-redeemer). Our sovereign God was firmly in control then and it was He who directed those seemingly chance events.

On the other hand, rather than cause something to happen, God sometimes allows them to happen. He allowed Satan to plague Job, David to take a lustful look at Bathsheba, and He’s allowed me to make a number of bad decisions. While I would prefer attributing their consequences to bad luck, I can’t. They simply were the result of my foolishness, pride, pigheadedness, or disobedience.

As the creator of the universe, God also set a certain number of “laws” in place that keep our lives somewhat predictable. Principles like the laws of gravity, motion, and conservation of energy determine how things will operate in our world. We have twenty-four hours in a day, the sun sets in the west, water flows from a higher to a lower elevation, and if a equals b then b equals a. There even are laws of probability!

These “laws,” however, can be broken by their creator. For example, it wasn’t luck that kept Joshua from running out of sunlight while battling the Amorites; God prolonged the day at his request. Although time may have stopped for Joshua, God made it move backwards for Hezekiah and Isaiah when the sundial’s shadow moved back ten steps. Natural laws were suspended when a three-day plague of darkness descended on the Egyptians (but not the Israelites) and when the Red Sea parted for the Israelites but consumed the Egyptians. Surely turning water into wine broke some laws of chemistry and Jesus and Peter walking on water broke the laws of flotation. None of these, however, were the result of luck.

While we see the practice of casting lots in the Scripture, nothing really is known about the lots themselves. The Israelites cast lots when dividing land among the tribes and when determining positions and duties in the Temple. After Achan wrongly took prohibited plunder from Jericho, it was by casting lots that he was singled out as the guilty party. In Jonah’s story, the sailors cast lots to determine who brought God’s wrath upon their ship and the eleven disciples cast lots to determine who would replace Judas. In those cases, there is no doubt that God stepped in and determined the outcome.

As for my grands and the dice—if He so wanted, God easily could have them throw five of a kind every time but that wouldn’t be luck; it would be God’s will. Nevertheless, I doubt God is going to interfere in a friendly game of Yahtzee. I suspect He’ll allow the dice to fall where they may according to His laws of probability—in which case the end result still will be according to God’s will!

Even though much of life seems random, we live by God’s sovereignty and not by luck. There is no force of good luck that can be coaxed into finding us a parking place, turn lights green, or roll a yahtzee nor is there a force of bad luck that we can blame when those parking places are filled, the lights are red, and we can’t even roll a pair. Whether God is actively causing something to happen or passively allowing it, nothing is a matter of luck. As for the favors and blessings of life—let’s always give credit where credit is due—not to our good luck but to the grace of God.

Nothing whatever, whether great or small, can happen to a believer, without God’s ordering and permission. There is no such thing as “chance,” “luck” or “accident” in the Christian’s journey through this world. All is arranged and appointed by God. And all things are “working together” for the believer’s good. [J.C. Ryle]

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. [Romans 8:28 (NLT)]

Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. [Isaiah 46:10 (NLT)]

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June 1, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You

THE HELLENISTS

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. [1 John 3:16-18 (ESV)]

great blue heronIn Acts 6, Luke writes about a problem with the Hellenistic Jewish believers. Meaning “to speak Greek” or “to make Greek,” Hellenism describes Jewish assimilation to the Greek language, manners, and culture. The process started in the 4th century BC with Alexander’s conquest of Palestine when Greeks settled into the land and, at the same time, Jews dispersed throughout Greek empire.

By the 1st century, there were two distinct groups of Jews living in Jerusalem. The first, the “Hebrew” Jews, were those who prided themselves on the fact they’d always lived in the land of the Patriarchs. (By that time, Babylonia and Syria were considered an extension of that land.) Having been born in Palestine, these Hebraic Jews spoke Palestinian Aramaic and/or Hebrew, used the Hebrew Scriptures, lived in or near Judea, observed Jewish customs, and regularly worshipped at the Temple. The other group, referred to as “Hellenized” Jews, consisted of Jews who once lived among Gentiles in Greek cities or Roman colonies. Coming from places like Crete, Cyrene, Alexandria, Cicilia, and Asia, they spoke the Greek language, were more influenced by the Greek philosophers, and used the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures called the Septuagint. Less observant of the Jewish customs and oral traditions that had developed over the centuries in Judea and Babylonia, Hellenists often were clean shaven. Like many immigrants, they settled in areas populated by others like them and had their own synagogues in which they worshiped.

While no less Jewish than their brothers, these Hellenists were looked down upon because they came from other parts of the world. Customarily, pious elderly Jews who were not from Judea would come to Jerusalem so they could die in the land of their people. Although these newcomers came to Judea out of devotion to Jehovah and the Torah, the Hebraic Jews  suspected them of being more Greek than Hebrew and considered them outsiders. The Talmud says the Pharisees considered any Jew not native-born a “second-class Israelite.”

The vast majority of Jesus’ first followers were Hebraic Jews and the new church was led by them. Nevertheless, both Hebraic and Hellenized Jews would have been among the 3,000 who became followers of Christ on Pentecost. In Jewish law, a woman did not receive an inheritance and, if widowed, became dependent on relatives and the community for support. Because so many of the foreign Jews returning to Jerusalem were elderly, there was a disproportionate number of Hellenist widows in their community. Strangers in a new land, the widows had no relatives at hand to care for them as would the Hebrew widows of the longtime residents. Moreover, by choosing to become Christ followers, they may have lost any assistance they might have received from their Hellenist synagogue.

Although the Torah commanded caring for widows and Jesus instructed us to care for the needy, the Hellenist Jews in the new church complained that their widows were being neglected in the food distribution. While the slight may have been the result of the church’s rapid growth, it was deeply felt and threatened the message and unity of the new church. In an example of godly wisdom and Christian unity, the church quickly addressed the problem and commissioned seven men to meet the community’s needs. The standard Greek names of all those chosen indicate the church intentionally chose Hellenists to right the wrong that had been done.

The early church’s neglect of those widows may have been inadvertent but it also may have indicated a larger conflict between two groups with vastly different cultural backgrounds. I wonder if the Hebrew Jews’ long-held contempt for the foreign-born Hellenists (“second-class Israelites”) truly ended when they became Christ followers. Could some people have carried their pre-conversion bias into the church when they became believers? With all of the prejudice, stereotyping, racism, xenophobia, and animosity we have in today’s world, I must ask if we’ve brought any of that into today’s church, as well.

Do we truly love our neighbor and welcome the stranger no matter what their citizenship standing, economic level, political viewpoint, nationality, race, sex, language, or background? We should!

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [Galatians 3:26-28 (ESV)]

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May 22, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Obedience, Temptation & Sin

PLAYING WITH FIRE

A little yeast works its way through the whole lump. [Galatians 5:9 (NTE)]

CAMPFIREWhile baking banana bread, I decided to add in the last of the walnuts I found in the refrigerator. After pouring the dough into the prepared pans, I spotted a few walnut pieces that hadn’t made the mixing bowl and popped them in my mouth. One taste told me they were rancid! Not only are rancid nuts horrid tasting but, if enough are consumed, they can make you sick! Just as there’s no way to get a little bit of yeast out of a lump of dough, there was no way to get every last bit of nut nastiness out of the bread. A mere cup of nuts managed to turn more than eight cups of what should have been sweet and delicious into something bitter and sour. As I emptied the pans into the garbage, I recalled a sermon illustration about a thirteen-year-old girl.

The young teen tried to convince her mother that she should be allowed to see a certain R-rated movie. Explaining that there was only a little inappropriate material (such as casual sex, violence, bad language, nudity, and drugs) in the movie, she promised she’d take none of it to heart. Although the teen begged to be allowed to view it with her friends, her mother denied the request. Saying she couldn’t understand, the girl left in a snit to sulk in her room. Meanwhile, her mother set to work baking cookies in the kitchen. A wonderful aroma filled the house and, when the cookies were baked, the mother asked her daughter if she’d like to taste a special new recipe. Although they looked like regular chocolate chip cookies, her mother said something extra had been added. As the girl greedily reached for the tasty looking cookies, she asked about the new ingredient. Her mother explained that she added a small scoop of leavings from the cat’s litter box and mixed it into the batter. Since it was just a small scoop, it would hardly be noticeable and she was certain her daughter could ignore it while enjoying the rest of the cookie. It was then that the girl understood why her mother had prohibited the movie! Like the little bit of R in the movie, the incest in the Corinthian church, the false doctrine in Galatia, the rancid walnuts in my batter, and the cat poop in the cookies, even a little bit of sin is more than any of us should consume!

As adults, we consider ourselves wiser and more discerning than teenagers and, as Christ’s followers, we like to think we’re able to withstand the negative influences of today’s world. Let’s not fool ourselves. Temptation is all around us. While it may look as harmless as did that R-rated movie to the teen, we can’t step in the muck without getting a little dirty. When David, a “man after God’s heart,” snuck a quick look at the naked Bathsheba, he never intended it to grow into adultery and murder, but it did. Like David’s voyeurism, even a little bit of nastiness, corruption, vanity, revenge, arrogance, prejudice, spite, smut, hatred, deceit, or immorality has a tendency to produce something far worse.

Think of Solomon—supposedly the wisest man who ever lived. When he ignored the law by marrying Egyptian, Moabite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, the king probably thought himself impervious their pagan beliefs. After all, with 1,000 women in his harem, what was the harm of a handful who worshipped idols? Solomon, however, wasn’t as wise as he thought! In his old age, those women “turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the LORD his God.” [1 Kings 11:4] The one who so wisely warned others to avoid the path of sin foolishly walked right onto it!

Sin is deceptive and, sometimes it looks as harmless and enticing as fresh-baked banana bread or chocolate chip cookies. But, like a little scoop of cat poop or some rancid nuts in a bowl of batter, no matter how small, every little bit of bad we allow to enter our lives affects us. Solomon warned that, when we play with fire, we should expect to get burned. Sadly, he didn’t heed his own words. Let’s not make the same mistake!

The temptation once yielded to gains power. The crack in the embankment which lets a drop or two ooze through is soon a hole which lets out a flood. [Alexander MacLaren]

Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire? Can he walk on hot coals and not blister his feet? [Proverbs 6:27-28 (NLT)]

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May 15, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Holidays & Holy Days, Prayer, Thanks & Praise

CHOCOLATE CHIPS

The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense. Never abandon a friend—either yours or your father’s. When disaster strikes, you won’t have to ask your brother for assistance. It’s better to go to a neighbor than to a brother who lives far away. [Proverbs 27:9-10 (NLT)]

Novelist Salman Rushdie said, “In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.” I agree. Granted, life can be as pleasant as a plain sugar cookie but, when you add chocolate chips to the batter or friends to the mix, it becomes something extra special.

Today happens to be National Chocolate Chip Day. (We can celebrate again on August 4—the official National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.) Although she didn’t invent friendship, Ruth Wakefield invented both chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookies when she added pieces of a Nestlé chocolate bar to her “Butter Do Drop” cookie recipe in 1930. It wasn’t until 1939, however, that Nestlé actually started manufacturing those beautiful teardrop-shaped morsels.

Fortunately, God didn’t wait until 1939 to invent friends! Knowing it wasn’t good for “man to be alone,” He created us for connection and gave us friends. He blessed Adam with Eve, Lot with Abraham, Moses with Aaron, and Joshua with Caleb.

When Satan took away Job’s family, wealth, and health, Job’s friends remained. Even though their theology was flawed, they kept Job company and tried to comfort him in his pain and sorrow. When Joseph was imprisoned, he was blessed by friendships with the warden and Pharaoh’s cup-bearer and baker. David was blessed by good friends like Jonathon, Nathan, and even the loyal Philistine Ittai. Naomi was blessed by Ruth’s friendship as was Elijah by Elisha’s. During the Babylonian exile, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were united in their friendship and faith. Matthew invited his friends for dinner with Jesus and Martha, Mary, and Lazarus welcomed their friend Jesus into their home. Even though they didn’t always agree, Paul’s good friends included Barnabas, John Mark, Silas, Epaphroditus, Timothy, Priscilla, and Aquila.

“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold,” goes the old song. Indeed, old friends are as precious as gold and, next week, we hope to spend a little time with some golden ones. We met 45 years ago while skiing in Michigan and continued our friendship on the mountains of Colorado. Although 2,000 miles separate us and we no longer ski, our friendship remains. Love, laughter, faith, and a heap of great memories connect us. We’ll treasure our brief reunion as we thank God for the chocolate chips He scattered through our lives.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the people who befriended us—the ones who taught and inspired us, encouraged and challenged us, laughed and cried with us, and taught us how to laugh at ourselves and life’s uncertainties. Thank you for the friends who daily provide examples of how life should be lived and for the friends who answer our questions and question our answers. Thank you for those who sought us when we were lost, provided directions, and welcomed us back when we finally returned. Thank you for those who recognized what was wrong in our lives (even when we didn’t) and gently opened our eyes to what we needed to see. Thank you for blessing us with friends who have openly shared their lives and who, in turn, have listened and loved and prayed for us. Thank you for the friends who continue to walk with us, steady us when we stumble, lift us when we fall, and carry us when we think we can go no further. Thank you, Lord, for the best friend you have given each and every one of us: your son Jesus Christ.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. [Marcel Proust]

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. [John 15:12-14 (NLT)]

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May 8, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Church & Worship, Obedience, Temptation & Sin

BEWARE THE YEAST (Yeast – Part 2)

“Why can’t you understand that I’m not talking about bread? So again I say, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’” Then at last they understood that he wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. [Matthew 16:11-12 (NLT)]

oleanderFor a single-cell microorganism member of the fungus family, yeast is mighty powerful. When added to water and flour, it starts to grow and multiply as it ferments the sugars in the flour, releases carbon dioxide, and causes the dough to rise. Moreover, once added to something, yeast can’t be removed. When a small amount of old fermented dough called a starter or seor is kneaded into flour and water, it permeates the dough and makes it rise. Some of the newly leavened dough can be saved to become the starter for the next batch of bread and so on.

In the right conditions, yeast seems nearly immortal. San Francisco’s Boudin Bakery uses a sourdough starter originating in 1849.  Scientists even revived yeast microbes from 4,500 years ago to make a loaf of bread! Indeed, the longevity, growth potential, and pervasiveness of yeast makes it a powerful substance.

The way yeast permeates and affects the dough with which it is mixed certainly makes it a good metaphor for the influence of one thing on another. Even though the Hebrew Scriptures never equated leavening with sin or evil, leaven and corruption had become almost synonymous with one another by the 1st century. Although Jesus used yeast’s power in a positive way as a metaphor for the growth and spread of the Messianic Kingdom, He also used yeast in a negative way; just as good can influence the world around it, so can bad.

At various times, Jesus used yeast as a metaphor for the power of evil to spread. He warned the disciples about the yeast of skepticism and unbelief found in the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod. In spite of the bountiful evidence of Jesus’ true identity seen in His miracles, the Pharisees and Sadducees demanded yet another “sign from heaven” to prove His authority. When Jesus appeared before Herod, the king wanted to see the proof of His miracles, as well. Not wanting His followers to be infected with such distrust or thinking of His miracles as entertainment for unbelievers, Jesus made this warning several times. Taking Him literally at first, the disciples thought Jesus was speaking of bread until they finally understood His meaning.

Along with the Pharisee’s skepticism, Jesus didn’t want his disciples influenced by their addition of the Talmud’s oral traditions to God’s final word in the Hebrew Bible or their hypocrisy in meticulously following the letter of the law while ignoring the most important commandment—that of loving God and their neighbor. Jesus also didn’t want His disciples affected by the Sadducees’ deceptive teachings. More concerned with their ritual purity than people’s welfare and politics than religion, the Sadducees denied things like angels, heaven, hell, and the resurrection while believing that people’s souls died with their bodies. As for Herod’s evil influence—Jesus didn’t want His disciples influenced by the actions of this immoral and self-indulgent man.

In letters to the Corinthians and the Galatians, the Apostle Paul also used yeast as a metaphor for the powerful influence of erroneous thinking and sinful behavior. When the Corinthian church ignored the flagrant immorality of one of its members, Paul warned them to remove him from the congregation lest such immorality spread through the entire congregation (as yeast does when added to fresh dough). In the same way, Paul warned the Galatians about the danger of accepting the perverted gospels of both the Judaizers (who insisted Gentiles had to adhere to Jewish laws like circumcision) and the Legalists (who preached a doctrine of salvation by works). Such false teaching was dangerous because, like yeast, it spreads out and affects everything with which it comes into contact.

Be it even a little false doctrine or immorality (whether sexual sin or things like abuse of power, financial fraud, deception, decadence, hate, hypocrisy, or gossip), when such evil is tolerated by the Church, it is like yeast. It’s evil works invisibly and will permeate and influence all that it touches. Just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump, a little sin can destroy the individual as well as the Church—the body of Christ. Let us beware!

Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. [1 Corinthians 5:6-7 (NLT)]

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May 4, 2023

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Faith & Hope, God's Plan, God's Word: The Bible, Salvation: A New You, Sharing Our Faith

YEAST AND THE KINGDOM (Yeast – Part 1)

Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.” [Matthew 13:33 (NLT)]

Immediately after the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to the yeast a woman added to “three measures of flour” when making bread. While “measures” seems vague, the original word used wasn’t. It was seah (about a peck and a half of flour) and three seahs were over 167 cups (nearly 50 pounds) of flour. This was an enormous amount of flour for just “a little yeast” and, as He did in the previous parable, Jesus used hyperbole to emphasize the power of something very small. The question in this parable is whether the yeast is a metaphor for a bad or a good thing.

This is the first mention of leavening in the New Testament but, by the 1st century, yeast had come to represent sin. Sticking to yeast’s traditional symbolism, some commentators liken the story’s yeast to false doctrine that can sneak into the Kingdom and see this parable as a warning about the dangerous power of false teaching in the Church. Enekrupsen is the Greek word used to describe the woman’s action in adding the yeast and this is its only use in Scripture. From egkruptó, which literally meant to bury within, enekrupsen has been translated with different meanings. Some translate it as hid or concealed (which implies she did something sneaky and devious in adding yeast) while others merely translate it as put, blended, or mixed in. Since enekrupsen is used both ways in other Greek literature, we can’t be sure which correctly communicates Jesus’ meaning. Considering that bread was being made, it seems that burying yeast in the dough would be expected rather than sneaky.

I find it hard to interpret this parable in a way that associates anything sinful or evil with the Kingdom of Heaven. Although His listeners may have expected yeast’s power to represent something bad, Jesus’ parables rarely fit his listeners’ expectations. When they anticipated one thing, He usually gave them another! That a Levite and priest had failed their fellow Jew while a hated Samaritan was the hero of one parable was as surprising as a beggar ending up in Abraham’s bosom at a heavenly banquet when the rich man ended up tormented in Hades. Jesus threw society’s expectations out the window when telling of a father who’d been offended and hurt by his wastrel son. Upon the boy’s return, rather than rejecting him as the law required, the father ran to welcome him home, restored him to the family, and even had a festive celebration in the boy’s honor. Equally unexpected was the story of vineyard workers getting the same pay regardless of how long they worked and the prayers of a tax collector being heard when the Pharisee’s were not.

I agree with the commentators who take this parable at face value. Believing Jesus simply is speaking of the pervasiveness and power of yeast, they see this analogy as a continuation of the lesson in the mustard seed parable. Rather than a corrupting influence, the leaven, like the mustard seed, illustrates that great things can come from small beginnings. Yeast is even smaller than the tiny mustard seed and yet both are powerful enough to expand and effect change. While both parables illustrate the extensive growth of the Kingdom, the second parable emphasizes the Kingdom’s transformative power. Just as yeast changes dough, the Kingdom will transform the world! In both parables, the message is clear—the Messianic Kingdom comes from small beginnings, operates quietly, but has the power to accomplish great things! That God’s Kingdom would start from small and humble beginnings to grow and change a much larger entity (the world) would have been reassuring news to Jesus’ small band of disciples.

Like the Kingdom of Heaven, yeast is a living organism. Like the Holy Spirit, yeast is invisible once in the dough and yet its effect, like that of the Spirit, becomes obvious as it permeates the mixture. Just as leavened dough grows from inside out, the Kingdom moves from our hearts into our actions and from our actions into the world. Yeast transforms what it mixes with and, as we are transformed, we transform those with whom we interact. Just as yeast needs certain conditions to grow, so does the Kingdom and, just as there are 1,500 different kinds of yeast, God’s Kingdom is made up of a wide assortment of people. Yeast is found everywhere—from the bottom of the ocean to the Arctic and from flower nectar to the lining of our stomachs—and God’s Kingdom should be as pervasive! Indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven is alive, it’s everywhere, it takes attention and patience to grow, and it transforms all it touches.

What Jesus’ listeners probably didn’t understand was that the Kingdom already had arrived. But, like a tiny mustard seed, a bit of yeast, or a baby in a manger, it entered the world quietly without fanfare. Like a small yellow flower, a lump of dough, or an itinerant rabbi from Nazareth, the Kingdom didn’t look that impressive at first. Appearances, however, can be misleading. Like a mustard seed that grows 1,440 times its original size or the more than fifty loaves of bread leavened by that bit of yeast, the Kingdom will increase and prevail. In the end, when Christ returns as a conquering king, no one will be able to miss its arrival. Until then, like a small amount of yeast, God’s Kingdom will transform the hearts and lives of all it touches! May we always remember that little things become great when God is at work!

When the dough is leavened, then to the oven with it; trials and afflictions commonly attend this change; but thus saints are fitted to be bread for our Master’s table. [Matthew Henry]

I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. [Matthew 16:18 (NLT)]