I have been thinking a lot about "the hardening of Pharaoh's heart" in Exodus and how it relates to the Signs (or Plagues). It is easy to think of Pharaoh as God's puppet and that God's plan is to so callous Pharaoh's will that Pharaoh will play into God's trap. With this reading God is... Continue Reading →
Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-11 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, 2 and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and... Continue Reading →
Twice in the last few weeks I have seen posts that pitted Scripture against the Holy Spirit. In both cases the statement was worded in such a way as to say that the individual was going to trust the moving of the Spirit over (and in one contrary to Scripture). These were posts I did... Continue Reading →
The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still. A. W. Tozer I find Tozer's words to be deeply troubling precisely because of their accuracy; throughout scripture we see those who resist God described as knowing God, God's word, and Scripture. I speak, of course, of stories like the... Continue Reading →
I recently wrote on three situations within the American church-- Jerry Falwell' Vanity Fair interview, Phanatik renouncing Christianity, and Lecrae speaking about losing events over his social comments (read it here). In that post I teased that I would write about what troubles me with the Church today, there are two interconnected issues which do... Continue Reading →
In preparing for my upcoming lecture on the Story of Christianity I ran across a line that stopped me cold. What we often study in isolated detail as so many examples of literary, legal, and iconographic borrowings from the secular world, if taken altogether add up in themselves to a clue to the success of... Continue Reading →
Cringe worthy church signs are all too familiar, the person behind this sign probably did not even give it a second look because obviously "Jesus cares". (If you are looking for good church signs try here.) This sign represents a real problem in Christian circles-- sometimes we simply do not know how to communicate. There... Continue Reading →
Living in Eastern Ohio I can easily remember the dramatic sight of the Nike billboard that used to be seen near the stadiums in Cleveland. The picture was LeBron James hands outstretched, captioned with the phrase "we are all witnesses". Nike's campaign was launched in June of 2007 when the Cavs made the NBA Finals;... Continue Reading →
I have been thinking about the women leaving the tomb on the first Easter Sunday; there is a recent push to remind people that these women were the first Christian preachers, apostles, and evangelists. The goal of most who make mention of this fact is to remind the Church that far from banning women from... Continue Reading →
Saints & Idiots 