The annunciation passages in Matthew and Luke are our first introduction to the way the Holy Spirit will pick up the threads of the OT and join them with the new revelation that came with the advent of Jesus Christ. We start with those passages where angels announce the birth of the Savior. I am…
We have heard it said that “Experience is the best teacher” to which I add, “especially when it is someone else’s experience.” That is, we need not repeat the mistakes of others, and can benefit from their accomplishments, if we wisely learn from those who have gone before. In addition to the “experience” adage we…
Given the important abortion case before the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) this week, I thought I’d make some comments about the abortion issue. I’ll make the bold statement that SCOTUS doesn’t actually rule to stop abortion. SCOTUS will, however, rule on the constitutionality of regulating abortion by analyzing the right to privacy under the Due…
Twice a week I sit with ten or more 17 and 18-year-olds and let them ask any question they want about the faith—freely—no question is out of bounds. I know that they are preparing to head off to independent lives and I want to make sure that they understand their own faith thoroughly before it…
Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who…
When someone sins against you, how should you fight your inner impulse to return evil for their evil? How can you respond without getting revenge? God’s design for true Christians is that, even when Satan squeezes them, the Scripture runs out. The Lord comforts believers in all their tribulations in order that they can know…
The 2004 movie The Village depicts a community completely sealed off from the outside world in order to protect its inhabitants from the dangers beyond, only to discover that the evil they fear is among them, because within them. They learned what the comic strip character Pogo declared: “We have met the enemy and he…
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD (Isaiah 55:8). Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be…
Typically, religious indifferentism espouses the idea that all religions and religious positions are equally valid. There is a modified version of this that affirms the truth but is willing to accept those who oppose the truth as equal partners in ministry. Many today do not really understand what the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920s was…