When I browse the shelves at Family Christian, Lifeway, or even Barnes & Noble, I see various and sundry Bible studies by all kinds of authors: for the ladies, {{Kay Arthur}}, {{Beth Moore}}, & {{Priscilla Shirer}}; for the gents (or coed), there’s {{John MacArthur}}, {{David Platt}}, {{Dr David Jeremiah}}, and many many more. What I’ve …
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Category:Meanderings
adoption is not a “rescue” – it’s wonderful, but it’s very very sad
Many people view adoptions (like my wife and I are pursuing right now) as a “rescue” – you’re “rescuing” an orphan from some third world country where they’ll die of starvation, illness, or neglect, and giving them a warm, loving, nurturing home in America! No. That is not what happens when you adopt. And not …
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church happens
Jesus did not say go make churches. He said go make disciples. If you are not making disciples, are your failing your Christ? Church is natural when disciples are made. It’s not a place – it’s body. Bodies don’t get made – they are crafted, built, nurtured, fed, and grown. If you think people get saved in church, you’re …
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What’s your Weltanschauung?
There is probably no more fundamental aspect of a person’s life, outlook, and opinion base than his weltanschauung – his worldview. For the Christian, it is vital that your worldview be based on – indeed spring from – the Bible. If your view of the world – your opinion-former, your interpretive framework for reality – …
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Christian apocalyptic fiction
Stories like the popular {{Left Behind}} series, or really any eschatalogical – other than {{Jerusalem Countdown}} – story always has a rapture event in it somewhere. Excepting the aforementioned movie (which was very good, in my opinion), I think there is a simple reason for this: if Jesus’ second coming is not presaged by a …
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consistency – pro-life or pro-death
Recently I wrote a post about how you are either pro-life or pro-death. I’ve since referenced that blog post a couple places, and have been attacked for it. I stand by my previous writing, but here extend the logic just a little. When I talked about this on a facebook post last week, I was …
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the gospel according to hashtags
For the past many months I have been meeting almost bi-weekly with a small group to study the book of Matthew. We started in Jan 2012, and as of the end of May of 2013, we’ve made it through chapter 21. At our last meeting, I had an epiphany: if the gospels were written today, …
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church planting
Jesus called us to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” [Mark 6:15] and to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” [Matthew 28:19-20a]. The first church in Jerusalem grew huge …
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why are Bibles so expensive?
I understand that printing a physical book entails some cost, but what makes Bibles so darn expensive? As an example, Lifeway has a KJV Study Bible that costs $99.99! Seriously? The book is hundreds of years past copyright – why is it [nearly] one hundred dollars? It CAN’T cost that much to print it – so …
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biased teaching
Sadly too often preachers and teachers give lopsided presentations of their subject matter to align with personal, political, or perhaps unknown biases. This occurred recently at the church my wife and I are members of in an evening topic related to alcohol. For some reason, this (along with music styles) seems to be the biggest dividing point …
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28 done
I have just completed my 28th year as an individual person. A year ago, I worked for HP and was getting ready to go to Chicago to start the rollout of HPSA for HSBC. 11 months ago I was getting ready to go to London to participate in more HSBC stuff. 10 months ago I …
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Staging Responsibility
I’ve written recently about both baptism and church membership. In those two posts, I argue both that the modern concept of “membership” is wrong, and that withholding baptism from a professing believer implies a more perfect knowledge of the state of someone’s soul than a mere human can claim to have. If membership is a …
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Being “of Age”
Is there an appropriate age at which someone can be considered for baptism? Is there an “age of majority” that needs to be considered before allowing someone who professes faith to be immersed in the baptistery? I am a firm adherent to believer’s baptism. When a sinner is saved by grace, it is both their …
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Questions to ask a church
As reported on The Fishermen, http://thefishermen.us/?p=332. 41 questions to ask a church. A. Theological Questions 1. What is the church’s statement of faith and how did the church devise it? 2. What has been the most vexed theological question the church has faced? Has there ever been a church split over theology or practice? Why? …
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Church Membership?
This is the first in a small series of posts on church membership. I am not convinced that church “membership”, as implemented by most churches I have attended or visited through my life, is a Biblically-valid stance to take. Certainly we are not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together. And in order to be …
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The joy of giving
When I was a kid, I recall it being somewhat exciting and fun to drop a couple coins in the offering plate at church. Now it’s not so interesting. Most churches I’ve been to seem to have an undue focus on money; certainly there should be some focus, as the Apostle Paul directed the Corinthians …
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