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Day 5 - Thursday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments: Morning and Evening | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  May 21: The Power of Words 1 Chronicles 9:1–10:14; 1 Timothy 5:18–6:2 ; Psalm 79:1–13 Gossip kills churches. And gossip is always painful, especially when disguised as concern. A request to “pray for so-and-so because of this thing they did” isn't asking for prayer; it’s gossip. If you know some personal detail about someone’s mishap, don’t share it with everyone—take it to God. Entire leadership structures have been wrongfully destroyed because of rumors starting this way. Paul warns against rumors when he says, “Do not accept an accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (1 Tim 5:19). How often have we heard something and been so influenced by it that we accuse someone based on that rumor? Hearing something may make it feel factual, but it’s circumstantial at best. Although Paul is cautious, he has no tolerance for leaders who repeatedly sin, especially those who sin directly against the community. He tells Timothy to “reprove those who si...
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Day 4 - Wednesday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  May 20: From Concept to Caution to Cause 1 Chronicles 8:1–40; 1 Timothy 5:10–17 ; Psalm 78:53–72 Some things in the Bible are downright surprising, including several passages in Paul’s letters. Sometimes his words are so personal, or they’re addressed to such a specific person or our group, that it’s hard to understand why that particular passage is there. But God uses people to do His work, and whatever they show or teach us sets a precedent—like how to deal with difficult people, or how to best help the poor. Some sections of Paul’s letters are rarely read aloud in church; we simply can’t figure out how to apply them. What application can you draw from a long list of people, or from the very specific details of how to evaluate a widow in need in your community (1 Tim 5)? What if there are no widows in your community? Do you just move on? First Timothy 5:10–17 sets a good precedent for us as Christians, and it can serve as a standard for applying other passages. We don’t kno...
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Day 3 - Tuesday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  May 19: Outline for Honor 1 Chronicles 7:1–40; 1 Timothy 5:1–9 ; Psalm 78:30–52 In most Western cultures today, we’ve lost our connection with the elderly. With one grandparent living halfway across the country and the others having died before I was born, I wasn’t around older people until I met my wife and her family. Unlike me, my wife had the privilege of knowing her great-grandparents. She has a strong sense of tradition and respect for the elderly, a deep desire to help them in all aspects of life, and she has been able to teach me to do the same. Paul has a similar experience in his first letter to Timothy. Paul says to Timothy, “Do not rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows” (1 Tim 5:1–3). By “honor,” Paul means showing a deep concern and a consistent, earnest desire to help them financially and with their daily needs. What Paul say...
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Day 2 - Monday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  May 18 His praise shall continually be in my mouth Ps. 34:1 Let not thy praises be transients—a fit of music, and then the instrument hung by the wall till another gaudy day of some remarkable providence makes thee take it down. God comes not guestwise to His saints’ house, but to dwell with them. David took this up for a life work: “As long as I live, I will praise thee.” Gurnall  Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997). Morning, May 18 Go To Evening Reading “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him.” —Colossians 2:9 , 10 All the attributes of Christ, as God and man, are at our disposal. All the fulness of the Godhead, whatever that marvellous term may comprehend, is ours to make us complete. He cannot endow us with the attributes of Deity, but he has done all that can be done, for he has made even his divine power and Godhead subse...
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