Traitors for Christ
As an avid user of Facebook it would seem especially important for me to answer this article’s title. However, I’ll admit that I never slowed down enough to ask myself its question; instead it only came to mind when a friend (in a Facebook message) mentioned that "since joining Facebook [she has] often wondered if…
Text messages How many of you use your cell phones for text messaging? Do you text a lot? A little? Do you get any automatic text messages? For instance, do you…like me…get the weather every day on your handset? For instance today… [ Read them this morning’s forecast. ] Along with the weather at 8:30…
Expository preaching Last week I said that I was preaching my first…and perhaps last…expository sermon. As anyone who has listened to me know, I am more of a topical speaker…although one who attempts to make sure it is Scripture that is speaking about the subject, not me. As fate would have it, however, this sermon…
Earlier this week I got a Facebook suggestion from Diane Kendall to "like" the Facebook page of an organization called YANA1. For those not familiar with Diane, she is half of the John and Diane Kendall husband-and-wife team that is such a significant and welcome part of the Antrim community, including owning one of my…
Preaching Styles Who is your favorite preacher? No…I won’t take it personally if it’s not me! 🙂 But, who is your favorite preacher? Now, why? What appeals to you about his (or her) approach? Is it because you are big on theology, and they dig deep into the word, even leveraging their immense knowledge of…
Often when we see the excesses of a given group—political, religious, or etcetera—we connect them with one end or the other of the given categorization’s spectrum. It is as if we pull out some graph paper, draw a straight line, and are convinced that anyone’s view can be plotted on it. A little bit left…
This past Saturday a lone gunman allowed the demons in his mind to escape in the form of a deluge of bullets, starting with one into the brain of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. By the time bystanders were able to wrestle him to the ground six people had been killed (including a nine year-old girl) and…
In the preface to his book, The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan fondly recounts his college years, where he was able to learn from the minds of some of the 20th Century’s greatest minds, including astronomer G. P. Kuiper. He notes: It was from Kuiper that I first got a feeling for what is called a…
A Father’s Hand In this week’s bulletin article, "A Father’s Hand," I compared my holding Augie’s hand to how our heavenly Father holds ours. I won’t regurgitate all of it now…but before I wrote that I used my Logos Bible Software 4 to look up every occurrence of the word "hand" in the English Standard…
More often then not, when I run errands close to home I am joined by a most affable companion. For instance, if I ask Augie if he would like to go to T-Bird I am guaranteed a hearty "Yes please!" At this point whenever he sees me throwing on shoes and the like, he assumes…
Recap We are now through three of the Symphony of Christ’s four movements… The Promise In the first we saw the creation of the heavens and the earth; our original parents almost immediately blow it by losing trust in God; and our Lord…instead of giving us the destruction we deserved…giving a promise of a Messiah…
Part one of this discussion quoted a tweet from Steve, a famous Christian artist who is now also a pastor in Florida. In response to my question whether God loves everyone, this brother in Christ responded that God does not saying, "His love, as is His grace, is salvific & not common." The first half…
I think most English-speaking Christians are familiar with the children’s song “Jesus Loves Me,” which begins with the words, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I’ve appreciated the fact that within our little congregation we don’t consider it unworthy of adult attention, and hymn 1014 in Songs of Faith…
We’ve now come to the third movement in the Symphony of Christ, but before the musicians start playing let’s quickly review what we heard in the first two movements… Movement 1, "The Promise" Our first movement, "The Promise," exploded at the beginning—as we were treated to the creation of the heavens and the earth…followed by…
Remembering the Promise The first movement of the Symphony of Christ started off magnificently—with the creation of the heavens and the earth ex nihilo—out of nothing—followed by a huge angelic celebration! Then we heard a melody of innocence in the Garden, but with a foreboding background tune played by a serpent and one third of…