Oversimplification It is common, when people are discussing complex ideas, to simplify concepts in order to make them easier to understand. This is helpful and every good teacher needs to be able to do this. The risk in simplifying, however, is that eventually the original context can be lost as the simple concept is repeated…
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Flourishing from Fear
There are no end to motivational speakers who will tell you that fear is a killer. It will make you unwilling to take necessary risks, paralyze your decision making, etc… This is often true. However, as I discussed in a previous post, fear of God has the exact opposite affect. It can motivate the best…
The Pain of Purity
Add a Pinch of Jesus The church, especially in America, is often taken with the idea of adding Christ to one’s life. You have the life you’re living. It’s basically comfortable but there are some things that make you sad, anxious, or angry. Maybe you have some addictions you’d like to kick. People may suggest…
Fear of the Lord
One topic that can be found in scripture but can be confusing for many is the idea of fear. Some verses seem to essentially praise fear as a pinnacle of virtue while others condemn fear as unbelief. Revelation 21:8 even lists cowards among those who be cast into the pit of fire! Is it that…
The Lord (as Revealed in Scripture) is One
Old/New Testament God There’s a common misconception that comes up in discussions between believers, even within congregations led by Bible teaching pastors, that undermines the deity of Christ, the immutability of God, and/or the reliability of the Bible. This confusion is often expressed with the terms “Old/New Testament God”. When discussing this supposed divide, people…
Gospels That Aren’t Worth Dirt
Parable of the Soils And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since…
Giving Until It Hurts
Get One Thing Straight Before addressing a problem that we have in modern Christian culture, I want to make sure those reading this don’t use this article as an excuse to not give financially. I recently had a friend recommend I read some writing from Jonathan Edwards on charitable giving and would recommend it to…
God’s Refinement
It’s not unusual to hear about God’s refining work within a believers life. God sanctifies believers through trials and commonly the refining of precious metals is invoked as an object lesson. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness…
A More Excellent Way
How can we be strengthened for this way? The excellent way to live life, and more specifically to live the Christian life within the church, is not going to be easy. In fact, with man, it would be impossible. However, Christ is capable of taking his rag-tag group of people with all sorts of backgrounds,…
A Christian’s Worth
Not About Self-Esteem For most of my life, I’ve been surrounded with the doctrines of the church of self-esteem. It has promoted itself under the guise of preventing suicide, improve happiness, and even increase morality in society. The idea is that, if people could convince themselves they are awesome, they would enjoy life more and…