Jun 13, 2021 | Explanatory Power, Theology
I’ve been a Christian for more than 42 years, and I am more blown away by the grace, mercy, and love of God in Christ than I have ever been. It continually astounds me how God in Christ can take lives wrecked by sin and guilt and shame, and turn them into something beautiful for their good and his glory. Some time last year I started listening to conversion testimonies I found online, and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. I’ve written about this previously, but I used to think testimonies were of limited value because they were essentially subjective, about a person’s experience of God, and not based on the objective truth revealed to us in Scripture. I no longer believe that because God’s work in his people’s lives is amazingly revelatory. And in every testimony I’ve heard salvation is accompanied by a desire to read the Bible and go to church. Experiences that don’t drive people to God’s word and God’s people are not from God. (more…)
Jun 10, 2021 | Explanatory Power
There are been some silver linings in this COVID Scam-demic for me (these interviews on Steve Bannon’s War Room is why I believe that). One is that my mind has been open to some things I wasn’t open to before. (I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!) For instance, I’ve always thought of organic as a fad and a waste of money. Now I’m not so sure. I wasn’t much for supplements, but now I am. I was not sure about vaccines before, but now I’m officially an “anti-vaxxer.” I used to buy into whatever the medical establishment said, and now it’s hard to trust much of anything they say. I used to never like when people used the phrase, “Big Pharma,” and now I get it. I’m grateful for many of the things “Big Pharma” does, but I no longer trust that they are disinterested parties in pursuit of the greater health of mankind. It would be easy for me to become a full-on cynic, but I can’t go there. There are many decent and well-meaning people caught up in things much larger than themselves, cogs in the wheel as it were, and they just go in the direction the train is already traveling. (more…)
Jun 6, 2021 | Explanatory Power, Plausibility
Those words from James chapter 4 are a sobering reminder of a fact of existence we all too easily ignore. Yet most people live as if this life was eternal life, as if death will not eventually find them. Everything they focus on is this life as if the next life isn’t coming, soon. Ignoring the next one never made sense to me because we’re going to be dead a whole lot longer than we’re alive, and if there is life after death I want to know about it. If there is, in an understatement for all time, that changes everything. Every. Single. Thing. One of the most important things we can teach our children is the truth of James’ words. In fact, practicing what I preach, we just learned last night that our daughter is pregnant with our first grandchild (yipee!!!). Being the morbid realist I am, I said to her, you know, as soon as that little creature was conceived, it was condemned to death. Well, thanks, Dad! My daughter knows that’s par for the parenting course she got from me. We can never be reminded of that too much, and she knows that too. (more…)
May 30, 2021 | Culture
Many well meaning Christians are under the impression that diversity is a good thing. It is not. It is not a bad thing either; it just is. In other words, just because a certain population is diverse in terms of skin color or nationality doesn’t make it morally better than another population that is not. Diversity is not a moral category. Yet many of those well meaning Christians have been persuaded to believe diverse is better than not diverse, and they don’t realize it is because of the influence of cultural Marxism, not the Bible. The diversity cat is now out of the bag with the unfortunate ascendance of critical race theory (CRT) that treats skin pigment as something moral and not a basic fact of existence. It’s obvious that the pushers of CRT aren’t interested in diversity at all. That’s just the Trojan Horse to get CRT to take over the culture. (more…)
May 23, 2021 | Culture
I saw yet another story last week about a Christian “celebrity” who announced his “deconstruction,” meaning leaving Christianity, or in his case, re-defining it. This “Grammy-winning vocalist,” Kevin Max, is a member of “the popular Christian band DC Talk.” He calls himself an “#exvangelical,” which is an obvious slam against Evangelicals. Now as an ex-Evangelical he follows “the Universal Christ,” whatever that means. I have a hunch I know, but you can be sure it’s not the Christ of the Bible. That Christ is so regressive, so uptight about sexuality and just doesn’t fit into 21st century postmodern hipster religion. As you read through the piece, you’ll see something typical of these “deconstructionists,” his disdain for conservative Evangelical Christianity. I couldn’t help thinking as I read it how self-righteous and judgmental this guy is. I also thought that his reasons for “deconstructing” are so cliched that they are an insult to clichés! (more…)
Recent Comments