As I a Bible believing Christian, I happen to accept the idea that every word of the Bible is inspired. With that in mind, I ran into something the other day that was initially troubling, but ultimately interesting.
If we believe that the Bible is inspired…and the early church councils established the current cannon (and they did)…does that mean we must acknowledge that the early church councils were inspired? If that is the case, then what does that mean theologically for the restorationist movement? I’m curious on what other people think. Discuss
Many Christians today speak out against Halloween and all it represents. It is one of the few times of the year that we see people venerating the evil of demons, witches, and monsters. With that in mind, it is no surprise that many Christians, especially evangelical protestants, are against its celebration. Instead of looking at this from a Biblical perspective as I normally do, I’d like to take this opportunity to look at how the Church has treated Holidays in the past.
The Book of Proverbs is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It’s full of humor and great advice. Today, I want to look at one of the more quoted proverbs.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.(Proverbs 9:10 NASB)
The kingdom of heaven is a wonderful thing. It’s not heaven. It’s not where we go where we die. It is here, right now. This weekend, I helped lead a college retreat with the Westwood church of Christ, and our theme was “living the kingdom life”.
What is the kingdom of heaven though?
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The Old Testament begins with a story of God’s gracious gift, creation, and man’s rejection of that gift. From that point that we call the fall, God begins the process of getting us back where he wanted us, with him. The narrative that our Bible presents from Genesis to kings ( even to Revelation or even now) is God calling his people to righteousness and the people failing time and time again. This culminates in when God cannot take anymore and sends the people into exile. Luckily God tells us why he sent his people into exile through the various prophets of that time.
After some prayer and conviction, I have decided to faithfully update this blog at least once a week. I have been convicted considering this is something that I have been blessed with a talent for and time to do so…
The book of Ephesians is one of my personal favorite works of Paul. Ephesians from its beginning to end is an incredible guide to Christian living. I would encourage deep individual study on this particular book if you are already a follower of Christ and are looking for something to do. You’ll find it here. Paul does an amazing job. He deals with living in unity, being children of light, imitating God, Godly relationships of various kinds, and so on and so forth… But what caught my eye is a well known and often utilized passage. We like to refer to it as the armor of God. Continue reading
The Apostle Paul is one of the greatest teachers of all time. After all, he has written a large majority of our New Testament. But I find it interesting to know that he learned to teach from somewhere. Paul was a disciple of not only Jesus, the greatest Rabbi who ever lived, but also of Gamaliel, the most respected Jewish Rabbi of his day. Rabbinical teaching methods vary from what we are familiar with. The Socratic method is very easy to follow for our brains because we are used to it. Rabbinic models are totally foreign to us, and until we learn to look for them, we will miss out on a deeper understanding of our New Testament texts. Continue reading
God’s word is presented to us in story. Stories build upon themselves quite often in the text. For example, Passover was built upon by the crucifixion of Jesus and our atonement. Past stories enrich our understanding of many passages in the text. Today, We’ll look at a couple of those. Continue reading
