John Mark Hicks

Texts: Acts 2:42-45; 3:1; Eph 4:7-8, 11-12 Days 62-64 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Previously, we have seen the formation of community through a shared initiation (baptism), shared faith in Jesus the Messiah (through the apostles’ teaching), and a shared table (breaking bread). These were communal moments in Acts 2. Together, 3000 were […]

[Sermon begins at the 55 minute mark.] How do you persuade a wealthy congregation in Corinth to share their resources with an impoverished and ethnically different group of people in Jerusalem almost 1,000 miles distant? When they shared from their resources with the Jerusalem believers, Paul wrote, they would “glorify God by [their] obedience to […]

[This is copied from my book Searching for the Pattern, pp. 90-104. Due to a recent bout with COVID-19, I have not had the energy or time to do any original writing on 2 Corinthians 8-9. However, I think the following captures the essence of Paul’s theological interests in this section of the letter. Two […]

I have some suggestions for Christmas! But first a little biblical theology…. Israel enjoyed their Spring and Fall harvests with week-long celebrations. In the Spring, seven weeks after Passover, Israel celebrated the Spring harvest with the “Festival of Harvest/Weeks” (Pentecost). In the Fall, Israel celebrated the Fall harvest with the “Festival of Booths/Tabernacles.” These festivals […]

The bloody stress of the Civil War strained relationships between northern and southern members of the Stone-Campbell Movement to a breaking point. While sectional attitudes created tension as well as the diverse response to participation in the war, the gut-wrenching reality–as Lipscomb saw it–was that northern brethren were more interested in high-salaried preachers, worldly buildings […]

The situation in the South through 1866 and for several years thereafter was critical. The hungry, naked and homeless were present in overwhelming numbers. The War had devastated the country. I think this is one reason we see a constant stream of small blurbs from Lipscomb in the 1866 Gospel Advocate on the poor and the […]

James A. Harding, the namesake of Harding University and co-founder of Lipscomb University, placed as much emphasis on giving, tithing and trusting in God’s provisioin as he did any other topic.  The sin of covetousness is idolatry and it “hurts the church more than any other,” he wrote.  We hate the extreme, but we tolerate […]

Note: This is the second of six small group studies that are coordinated with a sermon series by Dean Barham, the preaching minister at the Woodmont Family of God. Eventually, his sermons will be available here. The first small group study lesson is here. Free from Debt and Free to Share Deuteronomy 15:1-11 Among other things, debt creates […]

While in Montgomery Alabama for a summer meeting in 1902, James A. Harding answered several questions from the “Question Box” which was available to hearers there.  He answered a few of these through the pages of The Way (“Questions and Answers,” 4 [July 17, 1902] 121-123). One concerned the name “Christian Church” (which he opposed […]

“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”                  Karl Marx “At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality [fair balance, NRSV; or, equity], as it is written ‘He who gathered much did […]