Terry Pruitt's Blog

Here is a link to the sermon I delivered today at Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church. It is about how the story of David defeating Goliath is about how God works in our weaknesses.

The folks who do the NET Bible have updated their website. I have been doing a lot of reading on distance education for a term paper I have coming up. They have an interesting distance education program. Just add water and you have instant theological education program.

If you have not checked out 4-Block World , I think it may be worth your time. I now have dozens of blogs I read through Google Reader and I hit them four to six times per week. I always read Jollyblogger , D.J. Chang , Messy Christian 2.0 , and always, always read 4-Block World. Rather than spend a lot of time with words, he does a diagram on some current event topic. It is always insightful and usually funny. It is all about comparisons. I highly recommend it. What I especially liked about this one is that it ties into my 43-Things goal of making more small talk. If we want to talk to people, do we stay on the trivial or do we go for the meaningful. Do we go safe or make an impact. I personally like the impact but the communication always takes two. I want to learn and share. Even though that is my desire, the paradox remains.

On my trek through the Bible, I'm in the book of Job once again. Most evangelicals feel that the message of Job is simply that there are unseen issues happening in heaven so we can not understand suffering. However, we have a lot of chapters in Job (41) for that simple message. That's right, people who wrestle with the idea of suffering know nothing. The thinking is that all these orators and thinkers in the book of Job got it wrong and God has it right. Could we not have done as well by a poignant proverb in the book of Proverbs if that is the long and short of it? "Suffering is not understandable; quit trying to figure it out unless someone mistakenly think that you communicate with the transcendent one and understand the meaning of your life." III Evangel-Christian Chapter1, Verse 13 A part of our evangelical philosophy of life is mistaken by thinking that things like beauty, meaning, and righteousness are somehow less true than things that are provable via ...

Psalm 100 (ESV) His Steadfast Love Endures Forever A Psalm for giving thanks. 1Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth A 2Serve the LORD with gladness! B Come into his presence with singing! A 3Know that the LORD, he is God! A It is he who made us, B and we are his; {and not we ourselves} B we are his people, B and the sheep of his pasture. B 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving, A and his courts with praise! A Give thanks to him; B bless his name! B 5For the LORD is good; A his steadfast love endures forever, B and his faithfulness to all generations. B Pattern Analysis Hebrew poetry rhymes ideas rather than words. Sometimes scholars describe the patterns with letter. For instance, the ABB pattern means that there is the first line with an idea. The second line relates a new idea, but the third line is a repeat of the second idea, perhaps with a new perspective. Pattern analysis helps to understand the structure so that the reader can lift the meani...

The Jollyblogger points to a post by Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost called Divine Demarcation: Why Christians Should Discard 'Supernatural' . For some time I have thought that the definition of a miracle commonly used, that is "something done outside the confines of laws of science" is quite inadequate. God often uses means and controls and governs all things day in and day out. Then people place God's actions as supernatural and everything else is his grand wind up toy. That is not the picture we have in Scripture. God is guiding all things. Thanks Joe for your post.

A friend recently asked how do Christians know that Christ is sinless. Someone recently told this friend that Christ was fully God and fully man, so therefore Christ sinned since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Of course in this case, Jesus is the exception. Often times when we say “all” we exclude in a natural manner those not in the category, for instance no one naturally take it that this means all things in the universe sin. We don't take it that all rocks are sinful. This would be a category that would be excluded, even though a rock can be used for sinful purposes such as raw material for making an idol or it could be used as a murder weapon. In these cases, still we do not hold the rock as sinning but merely an object used for the purpose of sin. On the other end of the spectrum, we don't count the angels in heaven nor God himself as sinful. So the all excludes many things. The problem comes in since we would naturally count t...

The CBS Numb3rs episode which aired last Friday night, called “ Atomic No. 33”*, made me start thinking about the use of the word “cult”. They used the word in Numb3rs to say that the FBI has a list of cults that they watch for violations of the law. I'm wondering if the FBI really does have such a list. If they do, should it really be called a cult list? It really does not matter if the organization claims if it is religious or not. It also does not matter if an organization is deemed by others to be religious or not. What does matter is if the group is breaking the law. However, if a law enforcement group such as the FBI does maintain a list of cults, then what is the criteria? I would suspect the criteria would be abnormal control of the members, abuse of members and/or illegal practices. What do I mean by abnormal control? I mean draconian methods of control such as pressuring members to giving up of all possession, requiring fasting and causing sleep deprivation....

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

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

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 ...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

Matthew 13:1 : So Jesus picked a place of nature to teach. I think the shore might have made a nice place to gather with the sloping hill. Matthew 13:2 : Where did the crowds come from? Were they from the villages in the region or did they come from a distance? In the next chapter Matthew 14: the people are not close enough to their own homes to get food so they must not from the immediate vicinity, though of course there may have people from near and far. Matthew 13:3 : So the method of teaching in parables is established as both a method and a parable about teaching with parables. Recursive thinking, and for me recursive humor. The attention getting device of the word "Behold". The parable is about listening and the teacher wants to get the attention of his audience. Again recursive thinking. He introduces the character in the parable, the sower. His action is sowing. Who is the sower? Is it anyone who preaches or teaches the word of God or i...

Amanda is autistic and articulate, articulate at the keyboard. She does not speak except through the aid of her computer. The Wired article on her is fascinating . You might want to check it out. More important than Wired coverage is Amanda's thoughts. She understands herself quite well and might give you a thing or two to think about. Her blog, Ballastexistenz, is as sophisticated on the topic she covers as any other blog I have read. I don't think the Wired article links you to her blog, but to the YouTube video that has made her famous. By the way, Ballastexistenz as a name for her blog is quite sophisticated too. You might want to check out what the name means. If you don't get it, she does. Our culture has a stories such as the Ugly Duckling, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the Disney version of The Little Mermaid that tell us that difference and being a misfit is common and acceptable fact of life. However, when the difference is something society can e...

There is an article in the March 24, 2008 edition of Time magazine by John Cloud called Synthetic Authenticity . In this article the author talks about the ideas that what consumers are now purchasing is an experience, not a product. The explanation is that Walmart sells all products as a commodity. Starbucks sells an experience. You get the 98 cents cup of coffee or you can buy the $3.69 Italian coffee experience. I'm just finishing up my trip to Hawaii here and one of the things that impressed me is the difference of my experience. I saw both ends of the Hawaii spectrum. I visited both Waikiki to experience the packaged Hawaii, neat Hawaii and visited Volcano National Park (VNP). Just outside of Volcano National Park is a small town called Volcano or Volcano Village. If you Google the place you get Volcano, HI . If you look for the sign it says Volcano Village. It is the same place. I found that Volcano Village genuinely welcomes tourists. I was looking to not...

Wasn't the New Testament written hundreds of years after Christ? My Answer: None of the New Testament books have a date of publication written on them. It probably will not surprise anyone that those who attempt to figure out from linguistic and historical evidence the date a certain book of the New Testament was written come out with very different answers. The assumptions one brings to the evidence guides that interpretation. For instance D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris in their book "An Introduction to the New Testament" would date Galatians as being written A.D. 48. They would date the Book of Revelation as having been written A.D. 68-69. These two book are sometimes, not always, considered the first book and the last book written in the New Testament. I have taken Bible classes at both theologically conservative and theologically liberal schools. The more liberal schools would count those dates I just gave as hogwash. I think the more liberal scholars...