i have been asked to post on my practice of exposing this board to beliefs or lines of thinking that i myself do not hold to. this thread is meant to be an answer to that request. in the interest of keeping it clear for those who won’t read more than a few sentences, i’ll […]
on hurting a burgler
assume you live alone, and are home alone, in your apartment, asleep in bed, when you realize that your apartment is being broken into, downstairs. what is the proper course of action for a follower of christ? don’t assume you have, or don’t have, a gun, a bat, a tazer, or any other weapon: all […]
Plankeye
A friend of mine recently wrote: This is the very reason I stopped attending my youth group. It was so unwelcoming. And, there’s something else, too. It seems to me, that rejection from the church crowd holds a bigger emotional consequence than rejection from other crowds. These are, after all, the people with whom you […]
your job, should you choose to accept it
remember, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. i can’t stress enough: love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love it is the holy […]
this is the message we heard from christ
finish this sentence: this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you… no, really… read it and try to finish it in yer head, knowing that this is the first half of a verse from john, how do you think he’s going to finish this sentence? how would one of jesus’s […]
noah’s flood
many of you have probably heard that there are other people groups, besides the ancient hebrews that have flood stories. i went looking and found a web page that lists everyone the editor could find some of them are amazing: Inca: Pictorial records of ancient Incan rulers show that a flood rose above the highest […]
dealing with “weaker brothers”
first off: i like the ESV. bad NIV translation has spawned the phrase “weaker brother”, which implies that the person must be somehow “under” you, by the -er suffix. the phrase, though, is simply “one who is weak in faith” — regardless of how they’re faith “stacks up” to yours. anyway, on with the scripture: […]
“once saved, always saved” ?
let us supposed we have 2 people: billy and franklin (i just pulled those names out of thin air ) i’ll give away the ending of this story first: franklin goes to heaven, and billy goes to hell. now, let us also suppose that billy and franklin are twin brothers: born within minutes of one […]
how i left a young earth theory behind
position: the whole bible is the “why” and genesis is a very short answer to man’s age-old question of “where did all of this come from?” when god revealed the HOW (as he probably did to the first people, who took the story and ran with it, until moses got the “written” version), he did […]
ought “god” be capitalized?
position: god doesn’t care a whit about about the grammar rules of whichever particular language you write in. respect is shown by expressing a kingdom heart in a way that uplifts, rather than tears down. by truly caring more for your neighbor’s best interests than your own. this does not mean submitting to the prideful, […]
sharing the truth in love
how did jesus do it? he told stories that made points about heaven, and let people draw thier own conclusions. he had a small group (120) that he encouraged to follow him around, learning how he lived, and an even smaller (12) that he went out of his way to teach deeper meanings to, and […]
“your life is your best witness”
i have heard, many times, something along these lines: “your life is your best witness” it is simply not true. your words are your best witness. your life, and the way you live, will prove out what’s really in your heart, but no one gets “saved” without hearing — and sitting there not sinning, but […]
a thought on calvinism
i remember, back when i liked to take the label “calvinist” for myself, how i had so little understanding of what it means, really. i imagine there are lots of people like i was. i also know, now that i’m several years older (and hopefully wiser!), that all the discussions i had, thinking it mattered […]
more than we can ask or imagine
one thing we can’t do about the goodness of god: overestimate