In Matthew 14 Jesus came to the disciples walking on water. Peter said “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus told him to come on and Peter got out of the boat and was walking to Jesus on the water. Then Peter began to notice some other things. Matthew says that when he saw the wind, he began to sink. He cried out for Jesus to save him, which he did, and they got into the boat together.
Continue readingA few years ago I wrote a series of posts on what I consider academic discussions. The discussion and debate over Calvinism is, ultimately, academic. It is hotly debated only by people that are already saved. No one shares the gospel by saying “if you are of the elect then God has chosen you and will give you the faith to be saved.” Only after being saved do we debate whether we chose God or God chose us, and to what degree we had anything to do with it. The unsaved need to hear the gospel and ideally they would not hear Christians argue over Calvinism or any other doctrine. That needs to be an internal discussion. Another example is the age of the earth. I refuse to argue this issue because ultimately there is no way to know who is right and wrong and it doesn’t make any difference. If Jim believes the earth is 6,000 years old and Amy believes the earth is 4.5 billion years old, all that really matters is whether they believe Jesus was dead and made alive again for our justification. We could host a debate, make the respective cases and even have a panel of judges determine who wins. But the outcome of the debate would have no bearing on when or how God created the world. There would be no impact on how I love my wife, raise our child or treat my neighbor. There is no meaningful application.
Let me start off by saying that I am thankful to have a group of pastor/preacher friends that met together on a regular basis. Such a group is the exception, not the norm, but there are benefits of gathering with like-minded individuals and sharing. Every Monday morning in our case, a group of 8 or 10 Baptist preachers, the vast majority of whom pastor small churches in rural northwest Georgia, meet to talk about things going on at church, share prayer requests and then hear a sermon. The speaker will be someone from our group or a guest we have brought in, sometimes a missionary or someone from the state office. After the meeting, which starts at 11:30 and lasts about an hour, most of us will go somewhere and eat together. We pitch in and buy the speaker’s lunch. Sometimes the conversation continues at lunch and sometimes it’s kind of loud and you can only speak to one or two people that are closest to you.
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The governor of Louisiana recently signed a bill into law that the Ten Commandments shall be posted in every public school K-12 classroom. It’s been in the news this week, I have wanted to say something, but every time I think about it I also feel like “I can’t believe we have to say these things again.” Here is what Jimmy Humphrey of the Jimmy’s Table Podcast had to say on social media and he gladly gave me permission to copy and paste:
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I have written before on the fact that denominations exist and suggested that Luke 9:49-50 may apply. The church exists all over the world and without being worldly minded people are products of their culture. There are many different flavors of Christianity and what one must believe to be saved is that Jesus is the Son of God, died for our sins and God raised him from the dead. Everything else is details; there may be important details but the facts listed in the previous sentence is what all Christians must agree on.
So the question has been raised regarding different positions on theology. There are Calvinists, Arminians, and those that claim neither position but believe all we need is the Bible. There are Christians that believe we should worship on the Sabbath and others that gather on what they call the Lord’s Day. There are three basic positions on when the rapture will take place, other sub-divisions, and those who do not believe there will be a rapture. There is so much disagreement that one must either conclude there Is no God or that he offers us much grace otherwise no one gets credit for doing everything correctly. Who is right, who is wrong, and more importantly how can we know?
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Perhaps the phrase “thoughts and prayers” has been overused in recent years in our society. There is some push back by critics who believe politicians, law enforcement, celebrities and media repeat the statement too often to feel like they are doing something when they really mean to do nothing more at all, beyond the press conference following a tragic event. That may or may not be a valid criticism depending on who says it and under what circumstances.
Continue readingIf I attend a big conference with a celebrity speaker or meet an author or musician I usually write a post about it. I didn’t post for nine months so instead of writing one post for each I’m going to run everything together, hopefully in order.
Life Surge Atlanta – those are the best pics I could get from our seats. Life Surge is not exactly what I would call Health Wealth and Prosperity gospel but some of it was a little cringy, I admit. We didn’t sign up for any courses in buying real estate, I went to hear some of these speakers close to home. Up top is Jonathan Roumie from The Chosen, Willy Robertson and his daughter Sadie.
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I don’t have a lot of interaction with Twitter but I am on it and sometimes scroll through the feed of people and pages that I follow. There was an ad from the Ark Encounter, linking to an article about which type of cubit Noah used (a royal cubit is a little bit longer than what we typically think of as a cubit, around 20 or 21 inches). I made the mistakes of reading the comments. However you feel about a global flood or Old Testament historical accounts aside; there were hundreds of comments about how it doesn’t matter what he used because there was never an ark/never a global flood/the ark should have been a box not a boat/foolish Christians that believe in fairytale stories and such like. There was not one defender of the faith or Christian apologist in the multitude.
Continue readingI hate taking an extreme all or nothing position on anything. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. That’s just about the only total extreme I’m willing to stand by. Polarization on just about every other issue does more harm than good.
I read a tweet on Sunday afternoon that said if your church service is 4th of July themed that’s idolatry. I’m sorry I don’t know who posted it. I did not save it because I had no idea I would be coming back to it but now I can’t shake it. Anything can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. It is common for believers in our culture to get their strong feelings about Christianity and America mixed together. The image of a cross decorated with stars and stripes makes me a little twitchy. I can hear Michael Spencer screaming in my head. But just about every church I’ve ever been a part of has an American flag, and usually a Christian flag, in the sanctuary. Some would claim that displaying a flag in church or pledging allegiance to the flag – anywhere – is not something Christians can not do with a clear conscience. Our pledge and oath should be to Christ and no other. That is extreme at the other end of the spectrum. As is true with most things I’m more comfortable somewhere in the middle that at either far end.
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The Rome Area Prayer Breakfast celebrated 30 years with author and speaker Lee Strobel. He was last in Rome when researching his book The Case for Faith.
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