Dan Greenfield

Category: Christian Living

  • An Example to Follow, An Experience to Pray for

    The following is an excerpt from Bradley’s Accounts of Religious Revivals (pp. 194-202). I read a different portion of this Sunday afternoon. I recognize that it probably seems long, but it is excellent. Note especially the circumstances of the churches, how sinful people in the area were, and what these…

  • Three Questions

    In preparation for this week’s Bible study on Wednesday, I’d like you to consider these three questions: What is of greatest importance in your life? How is that seen in your life? (In other words, how does your life demonstrate or show what is most important in your life?) What…

  • Lord and Savior, True and Kind

    While cleaning out a drawer, I came across a small three ring binder that I used during seminary as a journal. Paperclipped to its pages was a photocopy of a hymn by H.C.G. Moule that was always helpful to meditate on and pray: Lord and Savior, true and kind, Be…

  • The Word of God

    “It is a fact well known, and often recognized, that those Christians who have paid the most scrupulous attention to the word of God as the standard of character, have attained to the highest degree of moral excellence. They have been the most humble, and penitent; because they have seen…

  • Why Did Jesus Pray?

    “But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray” Luke 5:16 Jesus provides a pattern to follow on how a believer should live while on this earth (cf. Rom 8:29). In addition to studying how he prayed, it is perhaps even more basic to learn why he…

  • Genesis 37

    A daily event in our home is family Bible time, aka devotions or “chapel.” After the kids have finished their morning chores, we gather in the living room at 8:20 a.m. We read a passage from This Week’s Walk with the Lord, which our church publishes each week. One of…

  • Prayer Meeting, Part 2

    The first installment of this series is here. Attending Prayer Meeting Provides an Opportunity to Refocus Your Life. When you gather to hear the Word of the Lord you look straight into the mirror of his revelation (Jas 1:23-25). Take every such opportunity to look intently into that mirror and…

  • The Prayer Meeting, Part 1

    I have been burdened for some time—at least two decades—about prayer meeting. Too many Christians don’t attend. Maybe it’s because my parents made this a priority in my life, but I could never imagine skipping any meeting of my local church. With this in mind, I’ve had some thoughts simmering…

  • Do Your Duty

    Asahel Nettleton relates the following anecdote regarding the proper response when receiving commendation or condemnation: A man once said to an aged clergyman, ‘My neighbors are slandering me, and what shall I do?’ ‘Do your duty,’ said the clergyman, ‘and think nothing about it. If they are disposed to throw…

  • Feelings or Faith?

    Psalms 42 and 43 have always provided encouragement and challenge for me. The situations, experiences, and feelings expressed by the psalmist find parallels in the believer’s life today: feeling far from and longing for God grief and remembrance of better times a soul that is in despair and disturbed mourning…

  • The Place of Prayer in Public Worship

    1 Timothy 2 addresses some essential aspects of public worship in the proper order of the church. That public worship is the focal point of this chapter is clear from vv. 8-12. God says that much prayer must occur when God’s people assemble, and that such prayer plays an essential…

  • Diligence

    Three times in his second epistle Peter exhorts believers thus: applying all diligence, in your faith supply…(1:5) be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you (1:10) be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless, blameless (3:14) Diligence is to be an essential…

  • Prayer Meeting

    They suffered countless ailments on each prayer meeting night,From whooping cough to measles, to deafness and poor sight;But strange to say their ailments come not at other times,For minstrel shows and movies, they have both health and time.The Bible Union Baptist, January 1928, p. 7

  • Future Expectation And Present Employment

    Paul’s point in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 is that because the Thessalonian believers are Christians, they will not suddenly find themselves present during the time of God’s end-time wrath, because “God has not destined them for wrath but for obtaining salvation” (5:9). The imminent event believers should expect is not wrath…

  • Love & Holiness

    These two characteristics are often pitted against each other. This should not be. Both are essential. While I believe wholeheartedly that holiness is God’s governing attribute, this far from excludes the exercise of love. In fact, one of Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonians demonstrates that in the Christian life love…

  • Called Unto Holiness

    Ephesians 5:1-21 emphasizes that as believers our entire lives must imitate God. Such godliness is expected given our present position (“as is proper among saints,” v. 3; “you are Light in the Lord,” v. 8 ) and expected future (“an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God,” v. 5).…

  • Dealing With Doubt – Psalm 77

    The moment I begin to doubt God because of what I am experiencing (77:1-10) I must recall, meditate, and muse upon God and his great and gracious works (77:11-20). God’s work that the psalmist meditated on was – of course – Israel’s Exodus out of Egypt and through the Red…

  • God’s Infinity and My Praying

    During tomorrow night’s Bible study on prayer I’ll be walking through the doctrine of God and drawing some applications for prayer. When I considered God’s attribute of infinity – that he is not limited by time or space – I was struck by the implications of this for prayer. I…

  • Sin and Psalm 51

    As part of my scheduled Bible reading this morning I read Psalm 51, a great psalm describing the response of an OT believer to his sin. After reading through and meditating on it, I picked up the new hymnal I was given last night by one of our folks from…

  • Should Christians Drink Alcohol?

    For the (hopeful) benefit of my Institute students, I put a PDF copy of my notes on “Should Christians Drink Alcohol?” into the Silo. You will also want to read a helpful article in the OBF Visitor by my partner in crime, Mark Perry, titled “The Christian and Alcohol.”