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Showing posts from April, 2008

10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design

Link to Evangelical Articles, well worth the reading. 10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part 1) 10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part 2)

Link to Tale of Two Pens

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You might check out this article by Monty Galloway called a Tale of Two Pens about the value of being a bi-vocational pastor.

Interpetation of Galatians 5:12

Jungle Pop has a post about the strange passage Galatians 5:12 . His solution to this problematic passage is to have Paul wish that the men cut themselves off from fellowship of the church rather than emasculate themselves. While this is a common solution to the problem, here is a repost of the comments I left on his blog. ---------------------------------- When I took Exegesis in seminary the teacher talked about this passage. Some factors we should remember that are different from our culture to the one in which Paul was speaking. 1. There were those who were eunuchs in the ancient cultures. As such, there was those who performed castration on themselves. There were those who were made eunuchs as babies. While this seems a remote and almost mythical practice to us, thinking of the harem guards of story books, it would not have been absurd in Paul’s day to have met a eunuch. I don’t believe I have ever met a eunuch, so that puts this category of thinking outside my normal system

Sleepless As I Reassess My Strengths and Weaknesses

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Insomniac's Blessing I am sort of an odd ball when it comes to human relationships. My wife is very forgiving of my oddities, and for that I am exceptionally thankful. However, not everyone is as forgiving as my blessed wife and children. So I have to really watch myself at work and church to not disenfranchise people with my matter of fact assessments and challenges to their way of thinking. Thinking through how to continue to communicate on a deeper level and not disenfranchise people has been something that I have been rethinking quite a bit. It kept me up a lot of Friday night. Two things set me off on this anxious, sleepless thought. The first was I was asked to help to reform some of the organizational aspects of a ministry. The thing that struck me what that I could get into a lot of conflict over this. I feel quite a bit of rejection from people in general, so further disenfranchising people sounds painful. I am trying to build bridges that I have torn down in the

Muslim-Christian Dialog Regarding The Veil and Beyond

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A Muslim writer, Al-Muhajabah, has an article The Veil in Christianity , I would assume it to be directed toward his fellow Muslims as a defense of Muslim practices and possibly as a way of showing of Christian practices do not line up with our own Scriptures. I may be wrong in assuming this because there is also indications of a desire for multi-faith dialog. It was also reprinted in the Pakistan News website Pakistan Daily . The Pakistan Daily edition is how I found it in my Google News daily news cruise. 1 Corinthians 10:3-10 is a highly problematic passage about head coverings for women during worship and the husband being the head of the wife. We Christians who regard the Bible as God's Word must deal with the passage by asking if the passage must be taken as a prescription for women and men in all cultures and all ages or is the passage dealing with a cultural situation that must be interpreted. Al-Muhajabah in interpreting 1 Corinthians 11:3-20 takes this as prescripti

Sermon Cloud: Are You Wasting Your Time In the Word of God?

I was given the privilege to preach a couple of weeks ago. I preached on the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:1-23. While it is not really a sermon about time management, I used that type of thinking to help people evaluate whether their heart corresponded to one of the soil types. So the title of the sermon is " Are You Wasting You Time in the Word of God? " Sermon Cloud is a great resource. It has a lot of other sermons on it besides mine.

Not Expecting Francis Schaeffer to Get Such Harsh Criticism From Christianity Today

There seems to be a repentance from ever saying anything positive about Francis Schaeffer in the Article, Not Your Father's L'Abri . The article covers the changes in thinking at the L'Abri ministry and the drift of questions from those original visitors asked. Interesting, but why must American's view historical figures, recent or distant past, from the point of view that debunking them is the best way to understand them. We can debunk all history makers by talking about lack of depth in thinking in some area, leadership style, lack of vision, and legacy problems. These criticisms are true of all leaders except the Divine One. Schaeffer planted, someone else water, but God is giving the increase. Why not see Schaeffer's legacy as being a part of a tapestry, complex and beautiful, that God is building in his kingdom? Interpreting Schaeffer's legacy is of course something that is very difficult to do. He had good and bad, strengths and weaknesses. Did Go

Obama Seems to Get It Wrong

I saw at Reasoned Audacity that Obama does not salute the flag. I think he may be referring to the fact that Obama did not place his hand over the heart at a playing of the National Anthem. A CNN blogger, FIRSTREAD has this. " Obama told the questioner the picture was actually taken during a playing of the national anthem and said, "During the Pledge of Allegiance you put your hand over your heart, during the National Anthem you sing." "This is the classic dirty trick of the campaign," Obama said later Wednesday at an event in Cedar Rapids."" United States Code Title 36 Chapter 3 — National Anthem, Motto, Floral Emblem, and March §301. National anthem; Star-Spangled Banner The composition consisting of the words and music known as The Star-Spangled Banner is designated the national anthem of the United States of America. Conduct during playing — During rendition of the national anthem— when the flag is displayed — all present except those in un