An Unwelcomed Gift
Consequences, pain, suffering and loss are unwelcomed gifts from a loving creator to wayward creatures. Only discomfiture of one kind or another drives change. Only a sense of dissatisfaction with…
Spirituality is Not a Personality Trait
I’ve had some interesting discussions this week about various churches’ perception of “Spirituality, Love & Humility,” My ministry is non-denominational and I travel around a bit so I encounter all…
Do the New Testament Writer’s Care About Context, Part 3: What is This Guy Doing?
In this series we are laying the ground work for analyzing the common suggestion that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about the original context of…
Do the New Testament Writer’s Care About Context, Part 2: Pinpoint Quotation and the Importance of Original Context
In part 1 of this series I introduced the common accusation that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about context. Matthew takes a text that was…
Stop the Madness: Equality of Outcome as the New and ONLY Morality
What you are about to read is real. These are not actors, but are the actual opinions of the people who are expressing them. No, seriously, I couldn’t make these…
Do the New Testament Writers Care about Context, Part 1: Fulfillment Issues in Matthew 2:15
Matthew 2:15 is one of those passages that bothered me a lot when I was a young Bible college student. After reading the original passage from which this “fulfillment” was…
So, Two Arrogant Punks Walk Up to a Seasoned Professor in Church: Youth, Respect & Ageism
I had an over the top experience in a congregation yesterday after preaching a message on a Biblical Theology of Holiness, called “Whole Life Holiness.” I have grown accustomed to…
Eight is Enough: Entrapment Rhetoric in The 1st Prophetic Sermon of Amos
We have invited Melodie Sargent, a student at Northpoint Bible college, back again to deliver another blog post. This time her attention is turned the importance of rhetorical structure in…
Can They Make Glasses for This? Myoptic Visions and Human Limitation
Myopic visions of reality are a basic human trait. The mind is incapable of tracking enough information for a person to see everything, to know everything, to anticipate the effects…
The Idolatry of the Modern Mind
When I was a child, I spent a lot of time irritating my teachers. I had the tendency to say, “What does that mean?” and “What am I supposed to…
New Creation: A New Years Day Celebration… the radio spot. Take a listen.
This is a heavily edited New Years Day message that I delivered at Darlington Congregational Church in Pawtucket Rhode Island a few years ago. Being heavily edited, it is not…
Unfair or Unfortunate? Emotional vs. Principled Thinking
It is a piteous thing to look upon the suffering of others no matter what the cause of that suffering. A child born with disabilities whose own struggle to survive…
Inconceivable for Its Day: Notes on The Reliability of the Bible
Today we have a guest blogger. Melodie Sargent is a student at Northpoint Bible College and has written a short reflection paper on issues related to the reliability of Scripture.…
Why Does the Media Lean So Far Left?
Why does the media lean so far left? You might say, “It doesn’t lean left! It’s not biased!” In which case I imagine that you are left leaning and quite…
Inspiration and Interpretation… the radio spot, take a listen
When I first made my attempt at radio, I tried my hand at some discussions with just me and my recorder at home. I use audacity and love it. This…
The Most Important Political Question You Will Ever Answer
There is something wrong with the world. Everyone, save a few Pollyanna hold outs, knows this. Thus, one of the most ideologically revealing questions that a person can answer is,…
Just desserts and Accidents of Birth: The Insidious Lie about Personal Responsibility
I wouldn’t normally write a blog in response to a Disney movie, but stranger things have happened to me… I can’t think of one right now, but I’m sure there…
Death in Ecclesiastes… Good Times! (The Radio spot)
A couple years ago, I received a phone call on a late Thursday afternoon asking if I could be the main speaker at a Men’s Conference two days hence. Something…
Solutions vs. Trade-offs: The Insidious Lie About Reality
There is no solution, this side of eternity, for the human condition. Anyone who promises solutions is either selling something, stealing something, or completely disconnected from reality. This is the…
Getting Isaiah, Part 4: Knowing when a Prophetic Sermon Starts and Stops
Okay, so we’ve established that reading the books of the writing prophets is hard. They wrote in poetry; they make casual reference to cultural practices of which the modern reader…