Terry Pruitt's Blog

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