This week’s BlogSwap entry is provided by Joe Missionary and is on the subject of How To Pray For Missionaries. Take it away Joe… Brothers, pray for us (1 Thes 5:25). Before Jane and I left the States, we of course spoke before a lot of groups. A common question was, “How can we pray…
1 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also…
Today I am going to carry on the discussion of baptism that I began yesterday. Or more correctly, I will begin it again. Yesterday I asked some questions that were of a rambling nature rather than being presented logically. Today I am going to try to bring a more systematic approach to the different views…
Over the past few days I have been doing some thinking about baptism. I come from a Reformed/Presbyterian background and spent the first 20-some years of my life in churches that practiced infant baptism (the Protestant flavor of it). Of course these churches also practice adult baptism when an unbaptized person becomes a believer. Several…
I am going to continue today with some thoughts from my Bible readings. This morning I read Revelation 6 (don’t even ask why yesterday was Corinthians but today was Revelation). In the previous chapter we read about a scroll sealed with seven seals that was in the right hand of God. A loud voice called…
Chris is a very dear friend of mine who does not always like to adhere to what I consider normal social conventions. I can’t say it is a bad thing that he does not constantly comply with what society says he is supposed to do and who he is supposed to be, but I must…
In this series of articles we are looking at what God’s Word says about community within the church. To facilitate this we have drawn out all of the verses in the New Testament that contain the words “one another” or “each other” and found that they point to four themes: unity, hospitality, devotion and edification.…
Several weeks ago we noticed an industrious pair of robins building a nest in a tree directly outside our bathroom window. Just about a foot below the window and perhaps 8 feet out from the house, in a little crook of a crabapple tree, they built a nest of grass, mud and bits of string.…
It seems that humans are comforted by familiarity and intimidated by the unknown. Perhaps this explains why clichés come into such common use. Or perhaps we are simply lazy and prefer to use a trite statement rather than create something original. The Christian life is filled with cliché. Christians are notorious for speaking “Christianese,” using…
God’s plan for the first relationship involved perfect unity. After awaking from sleep, Adam looked at Eve for the first time and uttered beautiful words that few men have since been able to match in beauty or simplicity, “This is now bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh;she shall be called ‘woman,’for she was…
I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, void of all hope of recovery. I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world, to be miserable. I am divided from mankind – a solitaire; one banished from human society…I have no soul to speak to or relieve me. We have all…
“I didn’t expect the truth about the Spanish Inquisition.” “NOBODY expects the truth about the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is dishonesty…dishonesty and revisionism…revisionism and dishonesty…. Our two weapons are dishonesty and revisionism…and your reckless apathy…. Our *three* weapons are dishonesty, revisionism, and your reckless apathy…and an almost fanatical devotion to deception…. Our *four*…no… *Amongst*…
Hang on to your hats, because I am about to spiritualize (and very possibly trivialize) one of the great laws of physics. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, in its simplest form, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Take a look around and you will see this law in action…
Several years ago the “big thing” in the Christian world was the WWJD movement. If you were attending a church during that time (and even if you weren’t) you probably remember people wearing the little WWJD bracelets. There were also WWJD bibles, albums, videos, books and every other type of marketing material. Though associated with…
J.A. Wylie was a pastor and author who lived in the nineteenth century whose greatest work is the three volume masterpiece “The History of Protestantism.” The first book spends a small amount of time examining early Christian history and how the purity of the original church gave way to the corruption of the Catholic system.…
Last Sunday was Father’s Day. My son spent his morning in our church’s preschool program while my wife and I enjoyed the service. When the service was over, my son came bounding into the auditorium just overflowing with excitement, holding something behind his back. He came to me and told me he had a surprise…
I know so little about love. This thought occurred to me just a few weeks ago and I began to look at love to see what it is and how I can learn to love more and love better. It is no great mystery that the Bible places great emphasis on love. The word “love”…
Matthew 18:19 and 20 are oft-quoted verses that most of us know by heart. Verse nineteen is the favorite of the Word of Faith so-called Christians. It reads “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father…
I was about 18 years old the first time I saw a dead person. My grandmother had unexpectedly suffered a massive heart attack and died just a few days earlier, and now the family was given the opportunity to say “goodbye” to her before the funeral. We were ushered into a room in the funeral…
There has been some controvery in the Forum since I posted my article about How To Hear God’s Voice. Perhaps controvery is overstating it, but people have been asking what I mean by “God’s voice.” This gives me the opportunity to write about something I’ve been meaning to say for a while now. Two Christians…