Week 2 of Advent is about faith, and we light the Bethleham candle. This candle reminds us of the faith Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethleham, believing God was fulfilling his promise to Israel and blessing their family at the same time. I began by reading Psalm 79. Most of the psalm is a lement over the destruction of Jesrusalem. Continue reading
Pray for InternetMonk
Please continue to pray for Michael Spencer.
To be honest, I don’t know who I’m writing this to. IMonk has a much larger audience than my own, and anyone reading my blog probably already reads him. Nevertheless, he really is sick and asking others to pray makes me feel better and hopefully he appreciates it as well.
In his latest podcast, he says that during times of illness, he tends to be more humble. Those of us that work with him in ministry got a Facebook update to the effect of “you guys carry on.” This is the least “control freak” I’ve ever seen him. If you listen to the podcast, he sounds a little off, and doesn’t know when he will broadcast another one. He has not been preaching or teaching for the past week, and will not be for a while.
Remember him in prayer, that’s all I’m saying. And maybe send a Joel Osteen e-greeting reminding him to keep thinking positive thoughts – that ought’a do the trick.
Christmas Card Theology
What if everything we knew about Christmas came from studying the pictures on our Christmas cards? Even if you never pick up a Bible, there’s a lot to learn from the cards we send around each year. Here’s a list of some that I’ve noticed:
- Mary and Jesus are both white. I’ve even seen Jesus with red hair, and lots of it. Way too much for a newborn.
- Angels are beautiful women. They basically look like super models in choir robes. OR
- Angels are 6 year old children. They’re cute, and plump, and sometimes play musical instruments.
- There were 3 wise men. There were exactly 3 wise men, no more, no less. Two of them were white, one was black. AND THEY WERE AT THE MANGER.
- The manger was in a shelter made of wood with a straw roof. There were no other buildings of any sort for several miles in any direction.
These are a few of the things we learn when we get our theology from Christmas card images. Assuming of course that your cards have anything about Jesus on them at all. I’m going to leave it at this. Check out the first couple chapters of Matthew and Luke before asking stupid any questions.
The Ten Percent Tithe
Tithing is a tricky thing. If a church pastor preaches a sermon on tithing, he will be accused of being interested only in money. The pastor’s salary (minister, priest, etc) is probably set in the church budget. It’s not like if the church has a good day at the offering plate, he’s going out to Golden Corral after the service. But try to teach on the subject of tithing if you don’t believe me, and see if words like meddling or greedy aren’t tossed around freely.
The issue I wish to address here is the practice many Christians have of tithing exactly ten percent of each dollar earned. I mean to respond to questions such as:
- Is tithing an Old Testament command?
- Are Christians required to tithe?
- Does Jesus demand a tithe?
- How much should one tithe, if anything? Continue reading
The Pagan Roots of Halloween; and Easter and Christmas
Just like the Internet Monk rants here, I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist home. We read the King James Bible, went to Sunday School, prayer meeting, revival, and every other time the church door was open. We didn’t wear shorts at my childhood home, nor go swimming in mixed company. My dad went to the public school and had me excused from the two weeks of swimming our P.E. class had in August. Dad was a street preacher, standing on the corner of a downtown city block shouting the Gospel at passing traffic. (He still does that once a week, but I no longer hand out tracts to pedestrian passersby.)
But you know what my parents did let us do? Go trick-or-treating. Continue reading
Building on the Rock
As Jesus finishes the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) he offers some practical advice concerning his teachings. He says that anyone who hears his words and does them is like a wise man that built his house on a rock. Do we all know what happens next? The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, but the house did not move. To not heed the word of Jesus is to be the foolish man who build his house on the sand; great was the fall of it. Continue reading
The Discovery of the Short Post
I was warned when I started blogging about writing posts that were too long. Shorter posts stand a better chance of being read. Well, I’ve recently been trying to get our youth involved in some online discussion on their Facebook page. I tossed out what I hope will be conversation starters, and realize that I don’t have to say everything I know in order for a post to be good. Here’s an example, titled Jesus Read the Bible and Prayed:
There are sometimes tough choices to make when deciding how a Christian should act or what one should do in certain circumstances. What’s easy to understand is that we should be imitating the things that Christ did.
We know from the New Testament that Jesus was frequently found in the temple and synagogue reading the Hebrew scrolls. He is the Word of God, and he also read the Word of God. Jesus also spent serious time in prayer. Not just reciting the Lord’s Prayer, but we might say Jesus was hardcore in his prayer time. He often got up well before sunrise to pray, and on occasion prayed all night ’till sunrise. In Gethsemane, he prayed until Luke says his sweat was like great drops of blood.
Sometimes we get the mistaken notion that the closer we get to God, the less we need to pray. The opposite seems to be true; you can’t get closer than Jesus.
The Importance of the Resurrection
There was a time I wondered why so much emphasis was placed on the resurrection. Jesus died on the cross as the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. Even if there had been no resurrection, his sacrificial death would have brought salvation; what could be more important than that?
The blood of Jesus was a more excellent sacrifice than that of bulls, sheep and birds. His death on the cross brought an end to the temple sacrifice system. The entire Gospel pivots around the cross. It is the universal symbol of Christianity. But the implications of resurrection are equally powerful, a fact that I can now appreciate as well. Continue reading
Jesus’ Example: Love Your Enemies
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Those are the words of Jesus in Matt 5:44. The entire sermon on the mount can be read in Matt 5-7, but let’s deal right now with just this one command. Like everything Jesus taught, he not only gave the instruction but provided us with his example to follow. Jesus loved his enemies. Continue reading
Parable of the Sower (Fling the Gospel)
In Mark chp 4, one of the parables Jesus shares is the Parable of the Sower. If you didn’t just click the link to Mark 4, it may be that you know this parable well. I hope you either know this story already, or at least take the time to read it now. After telling this particular parable, Jesus goes on to explain its meaning. The seed is the gospel, and what happens illustrates many things that could happen to those who hear the gospel shared. What I want to foucs on for a moment is exactly what Jesus meant by “went out to sow.” Continue reading
