I became a believer because of the fear of failure. I had failed in certain important exams throughout life. I am now an intern lay pastor working. I need to write exams to be promoted at the office. I realize that I wont have time to concentrate on my studies because I am now in charge of a Church.

In The Spiritual Life by Andrew Murray, we read these comments on 2Timothy 1:12: "We do not understand how literally and how absolutely God wants to have us for...

Many today are claiming that it is Biblical to do drugs. But what does the Bible say about drugs/herbs?

Why is it that Timothy and Titus are called pastoral epistles seeing that the only church authority and responsibility that Paul discusses are the eldership positions of the Bishop and Deacon?

According the the May 13-14, 2006, edition of the "Wall Street Journal," more and more children are getting something for themselves for Mother's Day. That's right. One son removed a tatoo that neither he nor his mother liked for his Mother's Day gift. Some are starting therapy or sitting down with a financial planner and calling it a Mother's Day present. Others are buying themselves phones so their mother can reach them. This the age when "men shall be lovers of their own selves" (2Timothy 3:2). This is just another example of our new age of narcissism.

Today's paper reports that Lew Anderson, the last actor to play Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody show, died in N.Y. at the age of 84. No disrespect meant to Lew Anderson (Or Clarabell), but I am sure that we will continue to have plenty of clowns. Many are in government and many stand behind pulpits. One of the signs of the last days is that men "shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:4). Whether those fables are the Chronicles of Narnia or the Da Vinci Code, they have to have some clowns who will declare their significance in order to survive.

In the April, 2006, edition of "The Berean Call," T. A. McMahon has an article called "Psychology in Prophecy." He admits that he has had some strange responses from this title. What does psychology have to do with prophecy? He quotes from 2Timothy 3:1-2, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves." Now, do you see the connection? Psychology is the elevation of self-love, self-esteem, self-worth, self-image, and a host of other exaltations of self. How do you feel? Are you happy with your life? Are you living the life you deserve? According to 2Timothy 3:1-2, the first indication of the last days for this age of grace is that men will be lovers of their own selves. Today's elevation of psychology and its attendant humanism is strong evidence that we are living in the last days. Sadly, the Christian community is as deeply involved in the cult of self-love as is the world. Just consider the prevalence of Christian psychology in our books and radio programing. It is standard content in most sermons today. Perhaps the most telling fact is that one of the most influencial individuals in the Christian community over the last quarter of a century has been the psychologist, James Dobson. We are certainly living in the last days.

More and more, Christians are turning to the practice of yoga. But is yoga, a practice of ancient and modern Hinduism, a proper form of exercise for Christians? Recently, Sannyasin Arumuga, managing editor of Hinduism Today, was quoted in the Orlando Sentinel proclaiming Hinduism as the soul of yoga. According to him, it is based "on Hindu scripture and developed by Hindu sages. Yoga opens up new and more refined states of mind, and to understand them one needs to believe and understand the Hindu way of looking at God... A Christian trying to adapt these practices will likely disrupt their own Christian beliefs."

In 1639, a Baptist preacher in London wrote a book entitled, "The Sufficiency of the Spirit's Teaching without Humane Learning; or, a Treatise Tending to prove Human Learning to be No Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God" (listed in W. T. Whitley's "A Baptist Bibliography"). Baptists have always had an uncomfortable relationship with the academic world. They have often been accused of being ignorant and some Baptists have been known to glory in their ignorance. Yet, every time Baptists begin to exalt education and learning, they tend to stray away from God. There must be a balance, even though it is an uneasy one at times. Our learning must always proceed from the Bible and be firmly grounded in God's word. Then, we must accept that Bible-believers will always be looked upon as "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts 4:13). But we must also remember that God looks on the world as "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2Timothy 3:7). May we always exalt the knowledge of God and holy things as the ultimate goal of all our learning and seek the wisdom of God instead of the wisdom of this world.

You may wonder what a physicist does for fun. For one thing, he plays with string theory. No, this is not a ball of yarn he stole from his cat. String theory has been a darling of physicists since the concept took off in 1984. It is based on the idea that the elementary particles of physics are not points, but are rather vibrations of one-dimensional strings. Different particles are the same strings set at different vibrations. In order to get the string theory to work mathematically, the physicists invented 10 (of maybe 11) different dimensions for the strings to play in, though no one knows what these dimensions are or how they exist.