Tommy Mann

Did you know that your words smell? And no, I’m not talking about your breath.    The words we choose to speak have a distinct smell; some words smell good, and some smell bad. Paul referenced the smell of our words in Ephesians 4:29 when he wrote, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”    The Greek word translated as corrupted means rotten. I’m sure you have smelled something rotten before. You walk into the kitchen and the scent slaps you right in the face. You try to hunt the source of the stench, and after several minutes you see the bag of potatoes in the corner. You hold your breath and reach for the bag; once you pick it up you see that it is dripping. You now work to get the rotten vegetables out of your house as soon as possible, and remove any trace of their remnants.    Rotten food stinks. So do some of our words. Making fun of peo...

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” That is what the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30. His question was posed because an earthquake opened the doors of the prison that housed the missionaries, but Paul and Silas chose not to escape. The jailer was touched by their choice to stay put, and then he knew that these men truly possessed something different.    The duo answered his question by telling him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household (v.31).” This shows us there is something we must do in order to be saved. They did not tell the Philippian that all people go to heaven automatically; each person must make the personal choice to believe in, or trust in, Jesus and His work on the cross.    If you want the answer to the question to be  nothing,  then the question needs to be “What must I do to be lost?” Some might say that in order to be lost we need to do something terrible, like commit a violen...

The author of Hebrews wrote, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession (4:14).” What does it mean that Jesus passed through the heavens? This certainly calls to mind the incarnation and His earthly ministry, when Jesus left heaven and was born into our world.     After He completed His great assignment which culminated with Calvary, Jesus ascended back to heaven. Luke described the scene this way: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Then two angels explained what just happened: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:9, 11).”   We notice that the word heaven in our text is plural; He passed, not through heaven, but the heavens. That is because there are three heavens. The sky above us, where clouds float by and raindrops fall,...

One of Aesop’s fables is about a boy who was drowning in a river, so he yelled out to a man nearby for help. The man was startled by the boy’s cry, so he approached the water’s edge and began to scold the child for being so loud and presumptuous.     Desperate for help, the boy yelled back, “Rescue me now! You can lecture me later on when I am safe.”    The world is filled with people who are drowning in their sin. Many of them do not yet realize this reality, but it is still a matter of fact. As Christians, our job is to rescue them, pulling them safely onto shore. Jude used similar imagery, writing, “save others by snatching them out of the fire (v.23).” Unfortunately, many of us adopt the posture of the angry passerby in the fable, choosing to lecture rather than rescue.    What do I mean? When we see someone we disapprove of, do we share the gospel, or do we shame the appearance or action? Many of us have become experts in lecturing the lost. We tell th...