Terry Pruitt's Blog

We were studying Acts 14 where Paul and Barnabas are stoned by the people in Iconium and greatly misunderstood in Derbe. Never the less the two messengers rejoiced that they were able to give the good news of Jesus Christ to others. What follows is my outline of thoughts on the chapter. Benefits of Suffering for Christ We participate in the sufferings of Christ. (Colosians 1:24) The suffering becomes non-verbal preaching It is a pragmatic way to take up our cross daily and follow Christ (Matthew 16:24) Benefits of Preaching in a Hostile Environment Your message is tested for the audience Is the gospel true? Are you motivated by pure motives? You as the messenger must rely on power from above The struggles heightens the importance of the message for the hearers Benefits of Preaching in an Environmental Context that Distorts the Message of the Gospel It forces the messenger to discern what is timeless and abandon those things that are temporal and fleeting It forces the messenger to s...

I got to worship this past Sunday at Scottsdale Bible Church . The first thing I noticed is that though they are huge, they try really hard, and successfully, to not be a monstrosity. The church is 6000 strong so they have divided into a couple of campuses. I attended just the south campus 8:15 worship. When you pull into the front parking lot there is maybe enough room for two rows of cars. It does not look that big. I actually thought I might have a parking problem. Just go to the rear of the property and there is what seems to be hundreds of rows of parking. It is all tucked away so that no one feels that they have some sort of zoning issues with the church. With that, the campus was broken in to a small town feel instead of a large building feel. There was various buildings. It sort of gave the feel that I was in the old west, yeah I know I was in the west but you know, the old west. One of the most unusual aspects of that was a building with the movie marquee. By the ...

Most winters we don't get snow until after Christmas. The snow we have in Maryland makes the season that much more as we approach it. Fall was late in coming but now winter is here. I'm sorry, but snow means it is here even if not on the calendar officially. I'm reminded that we live in a world that has seasons of change to keep us from a mundane existence. Growing up, we had a variety that came with the season, but each year the fruit from the plum trees was just a little different. We had an great abundance some years. Some years there was very little. We sometimes had persimmons and sometimes Cousin Marty found wild grapes. It was seasons with variety. Working in an office makes me wonder what I'm missing out doors. Each Christmas is a little different. This is the first Christmas that my daughter and her husband will celebrate it far away. Different, but I rejoice at their successes in establishing their own home.

The Christian Science Monitor has a series of articles on military chaplains . I have not read all the articles, there are several, but I'm working my way through them. The articles open up some interesting questions. What is the job of a Christian Chaplain? How does one express his or her faith while dealing with religious pluralism? How does one minister to those not of your own faith? How does one relate to Muslim chaplains from other countries?

HT: Jollyblogger In high school I gave a presentation in my geometry class on human decision-making. I basically understood the gospel to be a gospel largely of choice. That is that God has done everything but make your choice for you. I saw that each person had outside influences and then internal aspects of their being that caused them to make the choices they made. I thought that each person was free in their choices. But as I described this, my teacher said that the ideas I described were fatalism. I did not understand what he was saying but the more I thought about it as I studied philosophy the more I saw that I had described a type of physiological, biochemical or Freudian determinism. I had not described what sort of system existed in the individual that governed the decision making process. That each person was who they were and this was the bases of decisions. In essence I described the bad news, that we have a nature and it governs our choices. Whether that nature ...

How To Say Hallelujah With Gusto for Beginners and Fans of the Dirge is my sermon that you can find on Sermon Cloud.

I got this from Mischief Managed , A.K.A. Noelle my daughter. She scored higher on creativity for the test. You Are 73% Creative You are beyond creative. You are a true artist - even if it's not in the conventional sense of the word. You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times. How Creative Are You?

Starlings every 8 to 18 inches digging through the leaves in my backyard rustling through the leaves looking for a morsel to sustain them in their Fall migration. As I walked to the window 50 or 60 took to flight in unison and descended a safer ten feet a way. They seemed to be particularly jittery. The motion of scratching, scanning and peaking for food made the ground alive. The shear numbers were incredible. The humble backyard was now bird sanctuary. I called out, “Hey, Barb, Elaine come up here, but quietly.” I went to other windows in the house. There more birds on the grass in the neighbors yard. Then as silently and quickly as they came everyone of them was gone.

Way over a year ago I was reading a Wired Magazine article on the most popular websites. Facebook was one of the top and I did not know what it was. I mentioned this in passing to my wife and my then 18 year old daughter came back with her laptop and showed me how it worked. But I could not get an account at that time since my school did not have a Facebook page. Fast-forward to the present and I see D.J. Chang has posted on his blog his Facebook . My thought was, "If D.J. Chang can have a Facebook account so can I". D.J. is cool and I want to be cool. Right? So I have been distracted by Facebook the past two weeks, and my blogging has suffered. Part of the reason I blog is the social aspects and Facebook meets that need. The other thing blogging does is puts my thoughts out in a public forum. I just enjoy publishing my thoughts even if it is to a small audience. So I don't think Facebook will replace my blog but it is a great new addition to my Internet activ...

Our singing should be that God hears it with pleasure- singing in which there is not so much Art as Heart, not so much musical sound as of Spiritual emotion- Charles Spurgeon

This song speaks the glory of God. I'm listening to Mercy Me sing it on their CD "Almost There" Mercy Me Lyrics

I have been reading a book on conversation and how linguists look at it. This clip seems so appropriate. Hat Tip: Evangelical Outpost And he got it from PyroManiacs .

Mars Hill Audio had a story with Norman Klassen & Jens Zimmermann on how the educational institutions of the US have become enamored with facts that have mathematical certainty while leaving questions of value, meaning and purpose to be found by the individual with minimal guidance. So these institutions teach literature and history with no purpose or meaning. Purpose, meaning and value is what the humanities are all about. This intrigued me in thought, but as I thought about American Evangelical theology of the second coming, I think perhaps we have taken a subject that is ultimately about meaning, purpose and value and made it mostly about facts. To put it another way, the Scripture speaks of the end times primarily so we understand our ultimate destiny, not in order to have the scoop in the New York Times Newspaper when these events do come about. (Papers may not actually be published in those days, but perhaps they will.) While I believe there are facts to be understood ...

Hat Tip: Collide Magazine .

Parableman has a good discussion on Dobson Prefers Hillary to Rudy . While the professor of philosophy has some excellent points, I'm wondering if the GOP punts on the issue of abortion, could this actually be good for the pro-life movement. Currently the debate is at a stand off. Both side have positioned, both side generally are only picking up new followers from children maturing to make up their own mind on the issue, and both sides are looking for something to shake out. Christianity is often at its best when it is not the dominant social order, and in fact when its members are persecuted. Perhaps if there is no political party or no power structure supporting the pro-life movement, those who truly just want to save children can persuade others to have mercy. Being asked to submit to someone (or a law) is more difficult than being asked to have mercy. Also, perhaps we pro-lifers would have to depend on the great deliverer rather than our alliances with powerful leaders ...

Exercise is a part of my daily routines. Partially because I need it to control stress and weight, and partially I like it. It's a hobby. Those whose job it is to sell gym memberships and exercise videos are always looking for a way to gain from the latest exercise trend. One that has seemed to be a bit of a stretch for me to embrace, pun intended, is yoga because it has religious implications if not religious doctrine included. I have no issue with the whole idea of stretching to gain a sense of well-being. There is an interesting article at Pulpit on yoga, a transcript of John MacArthur and Doug Paige discussing Christians and yoga .

Greek Exegesis Class was about to begin. I'm one of the old guys there. Less sophisticated and a little less 'with it'. But one of the young and experienced seminary students was talking with his buddy. He knows the system. He says to his buddy, "You don't really need to study the Old Testament, just study the New." He went on to explain that this is where you need to preach from. It is contains our theology and so just concentrate on that. In a sense we do have to set priorities, we can't be experts on all aspects of Scripture. We do have to concentrate on the passages with foundational significance. But I would argue this is exactly why our churches need more than ever the Old Testament. Our people do not start out with an understanding of how God works in his sovereignty. We don't know how he works in covenant relationships with his people. We don't understand about suffering. We can tell someone how to say the sinners prayer bu...

"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." Galatians 1:6-10 I'm reading through Galatians in my class. Something that impresses me is Paul's strong opposition to those who would change the gospel. This would never go over in today's modern-let's-play-nice-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness environment. I heard a little bit of a story on NPR about ...

In my spiritual walk things have been changing but I'm a little confused. It is my desire to be transparent with people. With my wife and children, I think I share both my hopes, desires and some honest self-assessment. I understand my weaknesses and seek to find grace in them. One of my entirely overwhelming weaknesses is that I have a different sense of what would be appropriate. I don't recognize this as sin but as simply being different how I step in social and organizational circles. As the old saying goes, if everyone thinks you have a problem, then you probably do. So I probably do have a problem. However, my experience though is that when I try to discuss the issue with a brother in the Lord they immediately start to distance themselves from me. Then sometimes I even have those same people want me to confess my sins to them. I wonder, if they can't stomach my weaknesses, how much more will they reject me along with my sin. I do believe in confessing our si...

I wondered where presbytery boundaries were for the Presbyterian Church in America and I found this map. It shows where the churches are, sadly not the presbyteries. So if anyone has a boundary map, I would like to see it. But this map is really good though I did not find what I was looking for. Hat Tip: Sean Michael Lucas

Not long ago I started seeing blogs with political cartoons that suggest that Barak Obama is Muslim. I would think this would be discussed in the mainstream media as well in the blogosphere so it bore checking out. According to the The Caucus, a NY Times political blog, Obama is a Christian and attends Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 West 95th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60628 . Their worship center is the photo above. I'm not saying that Obama and I would agree on everything doctrinally, but if he claims the name of Christ, I will take him at his word that he is a Christian. Then dialog starts with agreement that Christ is God incarnate, that God is three in one, that sin is our most fundamental problem and the atoning sacrifice of Christ is the solution. It seems less than generous to label Obama a Muslim because his father was a Muslim. It appears to be a ploy to discourage voter enthusiasm for Obama given that Islam is not the mainstream religio...

You can listen to the song I am about to blog about at http://www.willpavone.com/ . All The Glory by Will Pavone is a refreshing worship song because it uses words of we use to describe our own desires and surrenders them to Jesus. While I often enjoy the language of Scripture to describe my prayer life and my walk with God, Will Pavone has captured something that a lot of praise music misses, a sense of self that recognizes it's selfishness and then turns that to worship. He also does some interesting switching up of the verses just to make things interesting. If you are looking for a fresh praise song, check this one out. All The Glory By Will Pavone All of my affection, All of my attention, All of my devotion, I bring to you. All of my existence, All of my ambitions, All of my allegiance, Will be for you. CHORUS: All the glory be to Jesus. Songs of praises rise to thee. Lift your voices. shout the chorus. Render praises to our King. All of my affection, All of my att...

Check out this discussion between the Baptist point of view and a Presbyterian point of view. I know David Coffin so appreciate his having been a party to the discussion. By the way, this image to the left is one of the oldest images of baptism. You will notice the immersion is done by standing in the water, not dunking. The post is not about mode of baptism but statements of agreement between the two points of view. In the summer of 2001 Mark Dever (SBC) and David Coffin (PCA) held a public conversation at Capitol Hill Baptist Church on baptism. They came up with the following 17 statements that both on them agreed on: 1. No one disagrees with professor baptism (except Quakers). 2. This is a subject of great import. 3. There are clear commands for and examples of professors' baptism in the New Testament. 4. This fact is not evidentially determinate of the question (i.e., it does not preclude infant baptism). 5. God's Word alone should settle the matter (but we do not mind ...

Psalms have been something that I have for years thought was a balance in Scripture. Paul's letters reach the mind and makes you wonder, but certainly when the Lord told us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and might, he meant to include that we should love the Lord with our emotional aspects of our being. So the Psalms seemed to be a solution or balance with those who might make Christian religion an egg head, mind centric sort of thing. But I recently read through the Psalms with refreshing insights. For the first time I saw the Psalms as theological. Take for instance, Psalm 65:2 tells us that, "When iniquities prevail against me, you (God) atone for our transgressions." In this we see substitutionary sacrifice for sin. It points to God being the source of the atonement, not man. Another Psalm with theological insights is Psalm 82:8 where it says, "Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the n...

We had an exciting time at Ocean City, NJ. Our goal was to have a restful time. If you want pictures or other details you will need to visit here , here , here , here , here , here , or here . So part of what I love on vacation is visiting a new church. Calvary Chapel Ocean City was a great worship experience. As all five of us came in, someone asked his friend, "Did a bus just let people out or something?" I did not tell them that we did not even have all our crew, since Annalee has gone to live in Illinois with her loving husband and Corrie was back in Glen Burnie holding down the fort and working at the hospital. Ryan from Pennsylvania sat next to me. He was just visiting also. Visitors at worship during the summer is a thriving ministry for the congregation. The sanctuary had folding chairs which were just about filled to capacity when we got there. Just a few minutes later, they started packing worshipers into the overflow room who are linked via a video feed....

I'm reading my Bible each morning on the porch of our beach condo. I had already started reading Genesis through part of Joshua before I got here. I just finished 2 Samuel this morning. Here are a few insights from the past week's reading. 1. Joshua and others were told to be strong and couragous. Those who were not strong and couragous were not following God's will. I think the message for anyone reading the book is "What ever you had finds to do, do with all your might," assuming of course that you are working within a godly framework. 2. The children of Israel wanted a king like the nations around them. They got what they wanted but it did not have a good result. Saul turned out to be a good looking leader who became very self centered. Lesson for everyone, becareful that you don't seek to follow the things of the fame world. 3. David was a man after God's own heart. He depended upon God to establish his kingdom, not his own smarts. He waite...

Pastor Bob Roberts of Northwood Church is party to a letter to the President supporting a two state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Often evangelicals have been strong supporters of Israel for biblical reasons with the unintended outcome of disenfranchising Palestinian Christians. This disenfranchisement has led to numerous conversions to Islam by young people who came from families who were Palestinian Christians. I think the sentiment is that the Muslims care about the Palestinians while the West sides with Israel. If you want to read more follow the link to Northwood Blog called My Northwood or follow the link to this New York Times article.

As I have blogged before, I was totally addicted to coffee and I both desire and am scared of coffee today. I go by and smell it but then never want to go back to having to have it to get through the day. I don't know that my blogging is going that way. 57% How Addicted to Blogging Are You? San Diego Singles from Mingle 2

When we talk about being missional as a church we talk about reaching those who do not know the gospel. While that is true, a part of being missional is contextualization. Three things that being contextual is not about: 1. It is not about hanging out with folks just like I am. 2. It is not about finding out who likes me and then appealing to them. 3. It is not about figuring out where the rich people live. If we can't reach the poor with the gospel, what makes us think we can reach the rich. After Jesus' discussion with the rich man, when he said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," Mk 10:25, he implies that the poor don't have the same stumbling block to accept the gospel. I think some church planting efforts I have heard focus on the areas that most economically developed. While I see the business sense of such a move, I wonder the gospel sense. Zeal for Truth has this quote i...

I have been in class the past few months with Will Pavone, but now I'm spending time on my i-pod with Will. He is a pastor and music leader of his church in northern Virginia. I would encourage you to sample and check out his music at his website.

A friend of mine wrote the following response to the poll on Church Planting. I define a church plant as the starting of a new church (perhaps as a "child" of a nearby mother church), but I exclude any well-established church that merely relocates to a more advantageous site or building. When I hear of a church plant, I say "Praise God for the committed people that have the vision and energy - and courage - to undertake such a challenge. Even if the circumstances are not optimum, I have no negative notions whatsoever like "That is ill-advised" or "They probably will fail." Rather my view simply is to optimistically wait to be a witness to a God's hand at work as He moves to increase His Kingdom. (Differing from your response list, I rarely feel inclined to want to be part of the early days of a church plant, but I never rule that out a priori. I always try to respond as I feel God is leading me and so far that has not been in an originating ...

A recent discussion brought up some different views of starting new churches, also known as church planting. Church planting has been an interest of mine for quite some time. As a part of that interest I would like to learn about some other points of view so I decided to make a poll. If you are interested in church planting, perhaps you could point to this poll from your website or blog. If you have not spotted it, the poll is off to the side.

A friend of mine looked at my desk and saw some NT Greek vocabulary cards and the word on top was the word for ''lust, passion, desire', επιθυμια. He was wondering why the New Testament used this word. So this study is a response to his question. This is a study is a quick look at what the New Testament teaches when using the word επιθυμια. It does not intend to address syntactical issues or various uses of the word. The word does not always mean something negative, sometimes it expresses a positive desire such as accompanies friendships. Mark 4:19: 19but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. Explanation of how επιθυμια is being used in the teaching: Desire chokes out the Word of God when it is heard. Luke 22:15: 15And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Explanation of how επιθυμια is being used in the teaching...

" Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." --Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV) When it comes to trying to obey the great commission, there certain actions that we must take as essential in fulfilling it. For instance the main verb that is in the imperative is "make disciples", however there word "go" is a participle which derives its sense of meaning in relation to the main verb. We can not make disciples of "all nations" without going. The two things we need to do to make disciples is to baptize them and teach them to obey. As we look at ways to fulfill the great commission, we have different ways to attempt to carry this out, all of them must involv...

Mysteries and urban legends are fun and cool. I have to say, I have been fooled by not just a couple of urban legends. The bogus quote from Petronius Arbiters had me fooled for quite some time. (Who knew that the word "reorganize" was not really used in ancient times.) Two urban legends I have heard recently made me want to hunt these down. The first was told to me over the supper table: Mr. Rogers wore sweaters to cover up his tattoos. I found an answer at a tattoo enthusiast blog: Bella OnLine says the following: I was at a social event recently when a friend pulled me aside. She said she had taken a look at my Bella site and really liked the tattoo articles I was writing. I asked if there was anything she’d like me to write about. She asked if I could find out more about Mister Rogers’ tattoos, and said she had heard that was why he always wore long-sleeve sweaters. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Tattoo Urban Legend #2, the Mister Rogers tattoo story. Sometimes the...

My wife and I after our daughter's wedding. Carolyn Pruitt is the photographer. (c)

Since the advise from Nigel telling me to improve my stage craft when preaching, I have been thinking about joining a Toastmasters chapter. I visited today as a guest. I enjoyed myself quite a bit though I was a little scared to make many sudden introductions to people. There was a speech given by one of the Toast Masters (TM) on her banana boat adventure in Jamaica. She did a great job of speaking but the folks were very forgiving on her weaknesses. That made me think this is a place safe to improve my stage craft. Talking about improving my preaching, I noticed a preaching blog cited by Transforming Sermon called Biblical Preaching . I have placed it in my bookmarks. You might consider doing the same.

I have not been up to much blogging lately. It has sort of been a journey that could not go public. Depression regarding my mid-life re-evaluation of my life messy and I need to rebuild. Depression is a good sort of pain, it make you focus on what is important, what is meaningful and what you ultimately value. Depression is the impetus for the triage of life. It is sad, even down right depressing, that people want to treat it as a disease instead of work off the pain as energy for change. It is sort of like an athlete who refuse to train because it is a bother. I had been working through some issues in my head and not getting anywhere with it. I was sort of isolated, spiraling down and just loaded down in burden. Then God gave me a nudge that broke up my downward momentum. For three days I met with three different men, one each per day, who gave me very divergent and helpful types of counsel. The first guy I met was Joe Friday, you know the guy who just wanted to know the f...

Parableman has an excellent discussion about Civil Libertarians and Hypocrisy . Parableman, being the great teacher philosopher that he is, takes on the question of how Larry Flynt and other pornographers are philosophical about the morals of their free speech. I will not repeat his excellent post here but let you follow the link. Recent discussions I had with some friends of mine help me see how the ideology of modernism only sees moral issues as issues of human will and desire. In this sense we are discussion morals as one would discuss a movie, a gourmet dish of food or a painting, it is merely likes and dislikes. However, if we see morality as actually have more substance to it, then we must apply that criteria to the issue of hypocrisy too. Parableman goes on to ask why Larry Flynt is so against hypocracy given how and what he thinks is moral. My guess is that accusations of hypocracy is sort of a trump card in many debates of morality. It is easy to play and easy to reuse....

I had a lot of respect for Jimmy Carter back in the 70s. I voted for Jimmy Carter when he lost to Ronald Reagan. It was my first election to vote. I get the sense that Jimmy Carter is a smart man, a nice man, a Christian man and a dedicated man. However, these things were not the things that people were looking for at the time. We were in the midst of a stand-off with Iran regarding our hostages and we were looking bad in the eyes of the world. While I'm sure some good things were happening during the Carter administration, what people remember is the shame we felt as a nation when we could not get the American hostages back from Tehran. When we sent in Special Force troops, the mission failed. When we tried to negotiate, it was for naught. We just looked bad. We had pragmatic problems like a fuel crisis, but that is not as important as regaining our prestige. I used to have a fellow soldier in the Army who was a fantastic runner. He had a realistic hope and chance of co...

Sure it is for a good cause, but the travel aspects alone are interesting. You might want to check out Mark Schultz Blog and YouTube Videos regarding his trip across the USA. I like the videos of landscape in New Mexico.

Check out this blog on health care missions called The Lord is the Healer . This is a sister in our church who spends a whole lot of her own time and her resources to minister to others. She could be raking in the bucks but she has a desire to serve the Lord in very practical ways. Please surf on over to her blog and leave an encouraging word or two regarding the work she is doing.

I just finished reading the book Simple Church: Returning to God's Process For Making Disciples by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger. I have read quite a number of church growth and management books. This one follows the normal suite of taking modern business management techniques and applying it to the church management. In this case, product design is the current trend in business success thinking and is now applied to the church. It is keenly illustrated from the world of business and case studies from churches. The Scriptural justification for the principles in the book are in short supply. There is some use of Scripture, however, as many management books do, this book makes a heavy use of definitions, statistics, and case studies. The style is easy to read and gets the main points across easily. The basic idea is that churches that have a simple design of ministry empirically are shown to grow the most. The product is defined in the book as discipleship process. Chris...

Veils function in a variety of ways with people. It is usually a garment for women. Modern American brides wear a white veil as almost a bridal crown. Usually very little is hidden by the veil in this situation. A widow will wear a black veil to show just how sad she is and to hide the tears and puffy red nose. It works just the opposite of the bridal veil. The Arab veil is used as a way of segregating society. Women are only seen by other women and their close male relatives. Still this is a sort of hiding but one that is imposed by society. It is expected. When I was in California I attended Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay . Bill Holdridge was my pastor there but he has moved on to teach at a Bible College in Brazil . I loved Bill's preaching and I have tried to pattern my own preaching after his. Any way I do like his preaching and think that if he is teaching at a Bible College it is good thing to have someone of his caliber passing the torch to the next generation of e...