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Being Apostolic
This quote is powerful. Sometimes we want the glory without the cost that it takes to gain that glory. We, as Westerners, certainly are guilty of that. ”You Pentecostals claim you want be be the apostolic church? The apostolic church was the persecuted church. Early Christians were martyred by their government, they were reviled in their communities. You probably mean…
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Fixing Our Attention
There are probably many in our world who still erroneously believe that Christianity is for the weak. It is for those who cannot think for themselves. It is for those in need of a “crutch.” Something like that. The claim I have made for years is the exact opposite. Christianity is not for the weak of heart. Have you met…
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Giving Away a Bestseller Idea
I need to copyright this post, because someone can really take off with this idea. So, here goes: The plot of a novel: A novelist is working on a plot where a programmer who works IT for a major company plays around with encryption and algorithms. He stumbles onto an algorithm that could possibly crash financial and retail networks. In…
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True Religion
27 True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us. (James 1:27, CEB) The current rage on blogs and other online sources this week is the supposed demise of “liberal” Christianity… and then the response of “liberal” Christians…
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A New Series for Group Bible Studies
As our church has been reading through the New Testament this summer, the format for the reading schedule has come from Biblica’s project The Books of the Bible. I have commented before on how this edition is made more for public reading and getting the reader into the full book of the Bible. IVP has now come out with a set of group…
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The Confidence We Need
Hebrews 9-10 lay out the work of Christ. The Old Testament system was in full view. It was a lot of work for very little hope. Christ comes and does this work once for all. This is a huge statement for a people who had to go through a lot of ritual every year. In Christ’s one perfect sacrifice he has…
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And Yet Again, What of Evangelicals?
We have been decrying the decline of the “liberals.” Alternately, there has been the call for the end of “conservatives.” All in the Church. Not even in politics! Now, John Ortberg has us wringing our hands about evangelicals again. Not really. I just wanted to be sensational in my headline. This is a well-thought out column. We need to realize…
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This Just In: Sex Still Sells!
Whether it’s hot topic issues like “gay marriage” or “abortion,” or “books” like the hot selling trilogy on just plain hot sex and the current flap over how we, as evangelical Christians, should handle it, this much we know to be true: sex still sells. We are definitely not getting is this: no matter who we are, Christian or not,…
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Journalism as a Dying Trade
I grew up thinking I would be a journalist. Lou Grant, the TV series after Mary Tyler Moore, was a favorite of mine. Print media is dying, dead, beyond dead… whatever. However, does that mean we have to kill journalism as well? The internet is a wonderful tool for me because I can access all kinds of viewpoints, but I…
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Pay Attention and Don’t Drift Away
In all our hand-wringing over the demise of (insert here alternately “liberal” or “conservative”) Christianity, what should be remembered is that while we’re busy yelling at each other, we might be forgetting to listen. This is why it’s necessary for us to pay more attention to what we have heard, or else we may drift away from it. 2 If the message that…
