Category: What do you think?

The difference between obedience and honour when it comes to parents

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JEFF TURNER

Ephesians 6:1 tells children to obey their parents. It is a command that is clear and straightforward for as long as a person is growing up in the home. But the question of what that relationship looks like once a child becomes an adult is worth thinking through, because the Bible does not leave it unanswered. The shift is from obedience, which has to do with action, to honour, which has to do with attitude.

Obedience is what a child gives while under the guidance and authority of their parents in the home. Once that season is over and a person is living as an adult, the responsibility changes but it does not disappear.

The Old Testament command to honour your father and mother remains in place for life. Jesus himself pointed out how some adults in his day found clever ways to avoid caring for their aging parents, declaring their resources dedicated to the temple so they could sidestep their family duties. God takes that kind of dishonour seriously, and the promise of blessing tied to honouring parents does not expire when a person grows up.

Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may turn out well for you, and that you may live long on the earth.

Ephesians 6:2-3

What the new earth might look like based on what Revelation and Genesis tell us

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JEFF TURNER

Revelation 21 paints a picture of a new heaven and a new earth that is quite different from anything most people imagine when they think about eternity, and one of the most striking details is that there will be no sea. The earth as we know it today is mostly water, a reality that many Bible scholars connect to the catastrophic flood described in Genesis, when rain fell for months and the fountains of the deep burst open. The world that came out of that event is the one we live in now, shaped by those waters.

Before the flood, the earth would have looked quite different, and the new earth may echo something of that earlier world, perhaps something like the Garden of Eden but even greater in beauty and wonder. Eden had rivers, and Revelation also speaks of a river in the new creation, so there is continuity there even without the vast oceans. Beyond these details, scripture does not give a full description of what the new earth will look like. What is clear is that it will be a place of genuine creation, beauty, and life, not an abstract spiritual state, but a real place where God’s people will dwell.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.

Revelation 21:1

What did God mean in Acts 18 when he told Paul he had people in Corinth?

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JEFF TURNER

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a topic of much debate. This writing is the conclusion of the author, but the Bible is the ultimate authority.

When God told the Apostle Paul to stay in Corinth because he had many people in that city, the natural question is how there could already be God’s people in a place where the gospel had not yet been preached. The answer is not that God saves people apart from the gospel; scripture is clear on that point in multiple places. Faith comes through hearing, and hearing requires someone to bring the message. No one is saved without first receiving and believing the gospel.

What the verse does point to is the reality of God’s sovereign election. Before the world was made, God determined who he would save and those names were written in the book of life. He knows his people before his people know him. When he told Paul that he had people in Corinth, he was saying that there were individuals there who would believe when they heard the message, because they had already been chosen. This is not a reason to skip evangelism; it is the very reason evangelism works. The preaching of the gospel is the means God uses to call the people he has already chosen.

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Ephesians 1:4-5

What Revelation 21 promises about joy and memory in heaven

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JEFF TURNER

Revelation 21:4 says that in heaven there will be no more pain and that the former things have passed away, and this raises a heartfelt question for many believers: will we remember the suffering of this life, or the people we loved who did not come to faith? I believe the answer that scripture points toward is that heaven will be a place of complete and uninterrupted joy, with nothing present that could bring sorrow or weigh down the heart in any way.

That kind of total joy makes it difficult to imagine carrying grief or regret into eternity. It seems that the heartaches of this world, and even the memories of our own sins, will not follow us there. To remember the specific wrongs from which we have been forgiven would in some sense be to recycle sin in the mind, and that has no place in a sinless eternity. Believers will know the joy of forgiveness without being haunted by what they were forgiven from. Everything in heaven will serve to increase joy, and nothing will be allowed to diminish it.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:18

What Ephesians 5 actually means when it says sexual immorality must not be named among believers

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JEFF TURNER

Ephesians 5:3 says that sexual immorality and greed must not even be named among believers, and one reader took that to mean that Christians struggling with sexual sin should not talk about it with others. But the verse is not about silence; it is about identity. Paul’s point is that these sins should have no place among God’s people, not that the topic is off limits in a context of genuine care and accountability.

Confessing sin to a trusted fellow believer is encouraged throughout scripture, and receiving support and prayer from others is part of what it means to live in Christian community. The verse in Ephesians is calling believers to a standard of holiness where sexual immorality simply does not characterise who they are. It is not a prohibition against the kind of honest, private conversations that help people find freedom from sin. At the same time, there is no need to share every ugly detail publicly; the goal is mutual support and accountability, not a full rehearsal of everything done in darkness.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much.

James 5:16