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...