When I Would Do Good
The Christian life is a struggle against the flesh. I’m going to ramble a little bit and weave that in as the theme. Romans 7:21 says, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” A believer can do good and want to do good, but right when […]
Jesus Is Jehovah
Here’s something apologetic to taste and eat. Most of you know about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religious group that does a lot of door-to-door work, passing out their Watchtower Magazine. The JWs teach that Jesus is not God. What they don’t often slip in until later is that He is actually the angel Michael. They […]
Does Your Music Check?
Music is a controversial issue, and I could get into why, but for now, let’s look at one of the two major texts in the NT on the issue and glean some points about it. Go to Ephesians 5:19, which says, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody […]
Baptism of the Spirit
John the Baptist prophesied in Matthew 3:11, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.” This is consistent with the parallel passages in Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. Let’s […]
Where Are the Words?
I wrote this as a post on SharperIron, and it was so much work, I thought I’d double up and put it here too.I think the original questions were (cut and pasted): “The thing that still plauges my understanding of all this is…did God promise to preserve EVERY word or not? If so, then where […]
The “As Long As It Doesn’t Hurt Somebody Else” Argument
John Donne, 17th Century English poet, wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of […]
Temples
The temple takes a prominent place in history. We have the tabernacle in the wilderness, replaced by Solomon’s temple (957BC), destroyed in 587BC, Zerubbabel’s temple (520BC), destroyed in 19BC, and then Herod’s temple (19BC), destroyed in AD70. In the future, the Antichrist will build a temple in the tribulation period, which will be desecrated by […]
The Dialectic Three-Step
The German philosopher Hegel introduced dialectic thinking in the early 19th Century. In his philosophy, one idea, the thesis, works against a contradictory one, the antithesis, to create something brand new, the synthesis. The synthesis becomes a new thesis and the process starts all over again. The process trashes objective truth and welcomes subjectivity. Hegel’s […]
More About How to Pray
We left off the model for prayer provided by Jesus Himself with “Our Father.” You know what’s next: “which art in heaven.” This isn’t to differentiate Him from any earthly Father or to detail His location. This implies His nature, power, height, and domain. He sees everything, can do anything, and knows all things. The […]
What About Singing Psalms?
Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19 both mention a direct result of Spirit-filling and letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly: Singing Psalms. Before the late 19th century, most New Testament churches sang psalms, some exclusively. Were they doing something that we are missing? In worship, we direct our music to God. What does […]