Tommy Mann

There is a greeting in the Bible that gives me goosebumps every time I read it. It is found in Acts 9 during the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (also known as the Apostle Paul). Saul had been blinded by the light when the Lord appeared to him, and he was led to a certain house in Damascus. While that was unfolding, God spoke to a man named Ananias and told him to go to that house and pray over Saul. In v.17 we read the greeting: "So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.'” Brother Saul? This gives me goosebumps when I remember who Saul was. Essentially a terrorist, Saul gave his approval for the martyrdom of Stephen. This same Saul obtained letters from the high priest to round up and imprison anyone who followed Jesus. Acts 8:1 says he was "ravaging" the church, and 9...

  In the last letter Paul ever wrote he mentioned three people that we know almost nothing about. At the end of the book’s opening chapter we read of Phygelus, Hermogenes, and Onesiphorus. The former two were fierce opponents of the apostle, while the latter was a dear friend.   In 1:16-17 he wrote, “May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me.” Onesiphorus refreshed Paul. That verb is only used this one time in all of Scripture, and it means to relieve. The Amplified Bible translates the phrase this way: “he often braced me like fresh air.”  What an amazing word picture! Who doesn’t love to take in fresh air, especially after being cooped up inside for an extended period of time? Paul knew about being cooped up; he wrote these words from a prison cell, after all.  We don’t know what exactly Onesiphorus did for Paul, aside fr...

There is a strange scene recorded in Acts 14. Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey, in a city known as Lystra. Lystra is in modern day Turkey and was in close proximity to Phrygia. In Lystra the Holy Spirit allowed Paul to heal a man who was crippled. When the town’s people saw the miracle they cried out, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men (v.11)!” They called the missionary duo Zeus and Hermes (some translations say Mercury and Jupiter, which were their Roman counterparts), and began to worship them by offering sacrifices. Paul and Barnabas rushed to stop them, pleading, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God…” While this is a humorous scene, a little history can shine some light here. In 8 AD, approximately 40 years prior to this event, Ovid published The Metamorphoses, which is considered to be one o...

I recently wrote about some of the characters in the Bible that illustrate how highly Christianity views women , and in this post I want to look at some of the instructions that are given in regards to women today. As a wife a woman has a unique call and office to hold. How does God’s Word instruct the husband to deal with his wife? For starters, he is told to view her for what she is: a priceless treasure. “An excellent wife, who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.” Proverbs 31:10 That same chapter tells the husband that he is to recognize and appreciate his wife’s character, not just her beauty: “Her husband also…praises her: ‘ Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:28-30 The New Testament gives further instruction for how the husband is to treat his bride. The Apostle Paul, who himself never married, was...

One criticism I often hear fired at Christianity is that it looks down on and oppresses women. “It is a male-dominating religion,” they say, implying that men use it like some lodge or club to rise to power while making women serve them. While there have no doubt been some periods in history in which women were looked down on or mistreated, that is no reflection on Christianity as a whole or of God’s love for both genders. In America, more women go to church than men. No matter whose poll you look at, women outnumber men in church on average of almost two to one. But beyond culture, let’s look to the Bible to see how God views women. God told Eve that her Seed would one day destroy Satan and sin; this was not a promise given to Adam (Genesis 3:15). A male-dominating religion would emphasize the work of the man over the woman. We see this promise finally carried out through Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary is the one given credit for raising Jesus and being...

The word repent means “to change one’s life for the better.” It carries with it the idea of making a 180 degree turn, of totally changing directions in your life. In short, repentance is a command for the thief to quit stealing, the drunk to quit drinking, the fornicator to quit fornicating, the gossiper to quit gossiping, etc. But that doesn’t sound like a good sermon. Aren’t sermons supposed to make the listener feel good? Maybe talking about repentance every now and then is ok, but just during an invitation or somewhere near the end of the message. We should never begin a sermon with a call to repent, and we should never harp on it the whole time. After all, won’t all that repent talk offend the lost or turn them off from Christianity? For starters, if a person is not a Christian, a sermon, no matter how bold, cannot make that person any more lost. But what about the claim that we have to warm people up to the idea of repentance? Let’s look at how some of the greatest preache...