Science says nothin’.
That’s right. Science doesn’t say a stinkin’ thing.
People say things. People interpret data. Then they draw their own conclusions.
We each interpret the world around us. We each make a choice about which evidence we observe. Who we listen to. What we watch. Which data we study.
And we also decide which people or institutions to trust.
Because life is a series of choices. Of moral and spiritual choices.
Under the Banner of Love
I am sick of “love” being used as an excuse for the church to do whatever new things they decide to do.
Or using “love” to justify whatever changes they want to make. Or to justify their association with unbiblical religious or secular organizations . Or to justify their obsession with being “relevant” to whomever.
“Love” has become the great excuse of the modern Evangelical church.
It is the banner under which all manner of questionable things are marched into the church.
Continue reading “Sick of Love: Conclusion – The Great Excuse”
I am sick of hearing about love.
Yep, pretty much fed up with it.
It’s not that I don’t love people; I just don’t always like them. Which are two different things.
But to really love someone is the Lord’s doing. Which is what His Spirit creates within us as He reaches out to those that we come in contact with. But that love is not about some gooey, mushy feeling of creamy mellowness toward other people.
It’s about caring for the eternal well-being of those around us.
Now, I know, as I get older and crankier, I have less patience with people. And sometimes I can be irritating to those around me. As my wife, my family, and my friends will confirm. As I gradually become the curmudgeon I never wanted to be.
However, the real problem is that “love” has become cheap.
Or, to put it another way, it has been cheapened by being so commonly used as the reason or the justification for every cause under the sun. Being used so often that it’s in danger of meaning nothing.
In the Bible record, otherwise godly men would sometimes choose their own methods to accomplish the Lord’s work. Ignoring the Lord’s clear commands on how to do His work in His way. Choosing, instead, to work in another way to fulfill some promise or desire God had expressed to them.
This simple ignoring of God’s word in the name of a good Christian cause is an apt description of the New Evangelical movement. A movement that began back in the 1940s which has drastically changed the course of Evangelicalism.
Continue reading “The Presence of the Lord: Part 2 — The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way”
The Lord’s presence is taken for granted by many Christians today.
In fact, most churches just assume that the Lord is present and delighted in most everything that they do.
All because an opening prayer was made in Jesus’ name, beautiful hymns were sung, the pastor preached a very passionate sermon, or that people really felt the presence of the Lord in the service that day.
Last week, I was listening to a Catholic apologist on the radio. He was speaking about how Pope Benedict stressed, along with others within Catholic leadership, the importance of “having a personal relationship with God”.
Now, many will hear this and think nothing out of the ordinary about this. As if this is just something normal for Catholicism to teach.
But this really surprised me.
It is important to understand that the man who was speaking on the radio, had been an Evangelical before he converted to Catholicism. He has been a Catholic now for 22 years.
He also claimed that Catholicism offered “a more direct way to God”. Than supposedly the Evangelical or Fundamental route.
Again, this got my attention.
What is really at issue here is understanding how the Evangelical church is becoming the mainline Protestant church. They are moving away from their biblical foundations toward a new identity.
Continue reading “Servants R Us: Conclusion”
In continuing this discussion of Service versus Teaching — and that is really what I am speaking of here — please, allow me to explain a few things.
Eternal Approach 
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