I wanted to pause for a few minutes and review what is being said. If you get excited about any of this (and I hope you are) and you want to explain these ideas to a friend, I want you to have this ready on your lips; you should be able to walk away from […]
There is a passage in James that is a classic stumbling block to serious belief in the full-bore grace of God that Paul teaches. Even Martin Luther wanted to excise this book from the Bible, because he viewed it as being so antithetical to the message of salvation by faith alone apart from works of […]
I need to put one thing to rest. I am not advocating sin. This seems to be everyone’s chief fear when I talk to them. Pastors, friends, close people, people who see my imperfections and ridicule the message of grace, actually almost everyone I know, disputes the message because they think I am advocating sin, […]
Another of my favorite verses: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10, NKJV. The greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind soul, and strength. And yet, not Paul, but John, […]
This is one of my favorite passages: “”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, “who, […]
I am starting a new book about grace; as my wife Betty knows it is my constant soapbox, my idee fixe. I wanted to post some things as I’m working toward it here so I can reference it on FB and such and get some reactions from friends. This is not really a chapter, but […]
Ossification occurs when soft tissue turns into bone. Sometimes this is good, as when an infant’s soft cartilage transforms into healthy normal bone as the child grows. Sometimes this is bad, as when spots in breast tissue calcify and can indicate cancer. Malicious ossification is a perfect metaphor for the current state of our national […]
There is a book apparently circulating around my church called “The Hole in our Gospel.” The byline is “What does God expect of us?” First, I want to make it clear that while the author, Richard Stearns, means well, I strongly stand against the message of this book. I will go as far as to […]
I read a book a while back that my mind often goes back to, called The Clock of the Long Now. They are trying to build a 10,000 year clock, and the basic idea is to force us to think in terms of the impact of our work and our mistakes in a longer term […]
So, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between science and religion. They seem to be very much at odds; the science-minded among us seem to think that the faith-minded among us are very naive and backward and stupid, while the religious, apart from being very frightened of the science-minded, seem to be content to ignore […]