Why does the word “disciple” suddenly stop being used in the New Testament? While “disciple” or its plural show up over 250 times in the Gospels and Acts, they don’t show up once in all that follows. My guess is that there is a connection between this disappearance of the “disciples” and the fact that […]
Is there anything that followers of Christ can do to get the attention of those who dismiss them as uneducated and backward? Our Lord had a reputation of being “unschooled”. He drew crowds of people by healing them of all kinds of diseases (Matt 4:24) (John 7:15). At one point he sent his apostles out […]
The good news of our age is that information is king. Knowledge rules. So by desktop, smartphone, or tablet, we have instant global access to the exploding journalistic, scientific, and commercial data of the world—sort of. The challenge is that we have a bit of an issue getting past the unnerving discovery that every question […]
One more look at the hate religion but love Jesus comparison. What if we hated religion the way Jesus asked us to hate the members of our own family? May sound like a stretch. But Jesus seems to consider hatred of close relatives a condition of his kingdom. While fulfilling the law that requires us […]
Malachi, the last prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, quoted God as saying, “I am the LORD, I do not change” (3:6 NKJV). Down through the centuries, however, many have noticed that, somewhere between the Old and New Testaments, the God of the Bible does seem to change. Instead of sending down war, floods, fire, and […]
Imagine hearing that the leaders of a major church denomination have decided to ask all of its members to stop using the word “holy”. With a little research we confirm that the report is true, that the denomination’s elders are discouraging the use of the word and are even recommending a rewording of the Apostle […]
The 91st Psalm is one of the most quoted, claimed, wonderful, mysterious, and misused portions of the Bible. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I […]
I remember hearing my dad describe how surprised he often was to hear the second side of a conflict. He said that when a co-worker came to him with a complaint about another, his first impression was to think the person really had a case. But if he took the time to hear the other […]
In our last post we pushed from two sides on the question of “Once Saved Always Saved?” I acknowledged that on this issue “there has been longstanding disagreement in the body of Christ” not because I don’t have an opinion, but because it is a fact. Real believers in Christ have disagreed on this. Sometimes […]
Some themes keep coming up in our conversations regardless of where a post begins. For some time now I’ve been preoccupied with the thought that every proverb, prediction, song, and story in the Bible needs to be read first for what it is– God breathed writing to and through people living in ancient times; and […]
