Posts by Andy Baker

He arrives on Sunday before it is time, Bible in one hand, faithful wife beside. He walks in and smiles for he’s glad to be Among God’s people and their faces to see, For he cares deeply for them and does love them so In Jesus’s Own likeness he watches them grow. Yet think of all that we may never see, Head bowed in prayer and hard callused knees, Many the tears: some of pain, some of joy, They all…

Fire is an amazing thing. As our kids sing, “it only takes a spark to get a fire going,” it doesn’t take much to turn that spark into a raging blaze. James 3 has much to say about the tongue in a very practical, down-to-earth way. In doing so, James 3:5-6 focuses on the destructive power of words in seeing the tongue in an out-of-control manner. Notice a few thoughts of the “tongues of fire”: Tinder for a fire is…

Let me start off by saying that 20th century classical music is, by and large, “weird.” John Cage, a late 20th century composer, wrote an 8-page organ piece called Organ2/ASLSP. The “ASLSP” means “play it as slow as possible.” Usually this organ piece takes more than an hour to complete (Are you asleep yet?). Yet, in 2009, an organist played the piece for 14 hours and 56 minutes. In 2022, the piece was played for over 16 hours. Not to…

One lady waited until the last minute to send Christmas cards. She knew she had forty-nine folks on her list. So she rushed into a store and bought a package of fifty cards without really looking at them. Still in a big hurry, she addressed the forty-nine and signed them without reading the message inside. On Christmas Day when things had quieted down somewhat, she happened to come across the one leftover card and finally read the message she had…

As God anticipated, the people of Israel would one day ask for a king. God spoke this prophecy by Moses in Deuteronomy 17:18-20. One of the most notable commands, and the one that Moses centers on in this passage, was the responsibility of each king of God’s people to make his own copy of the scriptures. Here is what he was responsible for: He was to write for himself a copy. In the simple act of copying word for word…

“Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint” (Proverbs 25:19). Observations about this guy: 1) He Causes Unexpected and Lasting Pain. One who has ever tried to chew food and discovered the shooting sting associated with a broken tooth knows that it is painfully unexpected. Because the unfaithful Christian may talk a good game and look like they are solid, this person can cause a great deal of…

For weeks they were advertising it. For weeks they were warning about it. This past Wednesday, October 4, at 2:20pm all cellular devices, all TVs, and all radios blared a sound similar to an Amber Alert as a test of the Wireless Emergency Alert was conducted. This affected people whether in a busy office, in a sports arena, in a serious meeting, in their cars, in their homes, and in their schools. Virtually anyone anywhere within the sound of a…

I am amused and baffled by what amuses and baffles our culture. Trends rise and fall and what is new today is despised and forgotten tomorrow. A video trend today is to ask men how often they think about the Roman Empire. Apparently, it’s a thing now to be amused at (particularly men) who think of the Roman Empire daily or weekly (I know, I don’t understand it either). If you are in the New Testament at all in daily…

There is apparently a new trend on TikTok (one of the popular social media apps of our day) called “silent walking.” The trend goes that a person just gets outside and takes a walk with no phone, no earbuds, no electronic distractions of any kind and just walks, listening to nature and being silent. Incredible! Revolutionary! Why didn’t anyone else ever think of such a thing? Just walking… The roots of this claim Buddhist philosophy, but respectfully, it is from…

“Oh, there’s just one more thing…” There are few things more frustrating than thinking that everything is understood and then there is an addition to the instructions. In the book of Colossians, Paul is addressing a people who have been told, “you have Christ and that’s great…oh yeah, but there’s one more thing you need….” What Paul writes to them is that if they have Jesus, they have it all they need to be fully assured in the faith! They…

Pro 22:24-25 – Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. Nathaniel Philbrick wrote a book called, The Last Stand, in which he described George Custer with the following words: “Custer did not drink; he didn’t have to. His emotional effusions [outbursts] unhinged his judgment in ways that went far beyond alcohol’s ability to interfere with clear thinking.” Imagine following a man…

When I visited Ukraine several years ago, I was impressed how beautiful everyone looked on the street and in the community. Men were wearing their finest suits and polished shoes, and women were wearing their most beautiful dresses, designer heels, and name-brand accessories. When I asked one of my Ukrainian companions about their wealth and how everyone looked so stylish, he mentioned to me, “It’s all a show. These people have only a few sticks of furniture in their houses…