What About Unconditional Respect?
Unconditional Respect Men from my era grew up learning unconditional respect. The men before me taught us to respect our parents. Was that right? Sure. “Honor thy Father and thy Mother” (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Matthew 15:4, 19:19, Mark 7:10, 10:19, Luke 18:20, and Ephesians 6:2). Did they base this respect on any prerequisites from […]
Faith and Resilience for Evangelism
The dictionary of Oxford Languages says that resilience is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” The American Psychological Association writes: “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Everyday […]
The Theology of John Wesley and Its Impact on the Methodist and Wesleyan Churches (Part Two)
Part One John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield began their search for the truth within the infrastructure of the Church of England in the early 18th century. John started the formal Christian religious denomination, the Methodists, with a break from the Moravians after having been an ordained Anglican cleric. No one sent him. He […]
The Theology of John Wesley and Its Impact on the Methodist and Wesleyan Churches
In my thirty-three years of church planting and then pastoring in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never met a converted or saved Methodist. It was just the opposite. They were some of the most liberal, unsaved people I ever met. I’m not Methodist. Even when I look at the history, I ask from where […]
I Don’t Want to Scare You But This Could Scare You
Artificial Intelligence I was preparing to write about AI (Artificial Intelligence) today, something I started last week, before I even heard about the public interview with Elon Musk. What he said added to what I will write here. In general, I’m following two threads of thought. The first is the potential control of AI or […]
Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part two)
Part One Very often I tell people that I don’t know if I’m done changing in doctrine and practice. As I get older, I am changing less, but I haven’t found that changing ends. I think I’m done and then I encounter something else or another way I might need to change. Changes Other people […]
The Hypocrisy and Deceitfulness of the Chief Critical Text Attack on the Received Text of Scripture
The Ross-White Debate produced at least one major and helpful revelation. It showed the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of the chief modern critical text attack on the received text of scripture. I want you to understand this. White called the USB/NA textually superior because the Roman Catholic humanist Erasmus in 1516 had one extant manuscript for […]
Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part one)
Growth and Change No one comes into this world knowing every doctrine of scripture. For someone to grow in grace and knowledge, he will change in his personal belief. He could go either way, better or worse. A person won’t remain static. Growth requires making good changes and avoiding bad ones. Like anyone else, I […]
What In a Salvation Presentation Is the Chief Factor Toward Someone’s Conversion?
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his Complete Letters (1868-1871) wrote: If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth. Just know that if you remain with Christ, you also […]
Textual Criticism Related to the Bible Bows to Modernity
Christianity is old. There is no new and improved version of it. It is what it started to be. Changing it isn’t a good thing. Let me expand. Modern and Modernity Right now as I implement the term “modern” I am using it in the way it is in the word “modernity” or “modernism.” I […]
Recent Comments