... the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.

The important thing, Jesus is saying (in Matthew 5:33-37), is to tell the truth and keep one's pledges without insisting that a certain form of words must be used if it is to be binding. No oath is necessary for the truthful person... Their word is so reliable that nothing more than a statement is needed from them.

Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring.

God has disclosed of himself in human words with such magnificent self accommodation to our limitations. Precisely so that we may be his holy people and reverence everything that he says, cherish it, value it, and thus live it out.

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.

If the text is God's Word, it is appropriate that we respond with reverence, a certain fear, a holy joy, a questing obedience.

Most good evangelical Study Bibles have more in common than people sometimes realize. All of them are committed to explaining the Bible to lay readers.