I have been off the red letters for a few days so now I am going to spend the next few posts on them alone. In the past few weeks I have been reviewing the various commentaries on the Lord’s prayer. Quite frankly many of them aren’t very helpful to me. No one seems to be able to come right out and say what they … Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer
Why do Christians and other religions put such value on the places where their deities or prophets roamed? Jerusalem and its environs have been in a steady state of conflict from before Jesus’ time until now and will probably remain so in the future. It seems like there are constant fights going on over that ground. That is because three of the world’s major religions … Continue reading It’s Just a Place
We have all seen many pictures such as the above portraying Jesus. Most show him as a fair haired blue eyed person of European descent. Of course in reality that is likely not what Jesus looked like. He probably looked much more like most of the 9/11 terrorists than what we are used to seeing. Let’s get over what Jesus might have looked like … Continue reading It’s Just a Face
I am going to do a cross blog thing today. I promise not to do it often. Trevin Wax, who is an author and pastor of a Tennessee Baptist church has a blog entitle “Kingdom People”. He has quite a large and loyal following. Wednesday’s post he questioned the “smug superiority” of the United States especially given the recent inauguration. The post below is a … Continue reading Is the United States the next Babylon?
Subtitle: Some very inspiring words I just finished a book entitled “The Twenty Piece Shuffle” by Greg Paul. It is about a ministry to the poor in the Toronto area. Greg Paul has done such a great job in putting us inside this ministry by telling stories of those who have frequented the mission over the years. It is a very worthwhile read to … Continue reading The Twenty Piece Shuffle
I have always wondered why Catholics are so focused on the Virgin Mary and Protestants, except for Christmas Eve, almost totally ignore her? If we read the Gospels and the Book of Acts, besides for Jesus’ birth Mary is mentioned only a couple of times in the text so that doesn’t lead us to believe that Mary had a very prominent role among the … Continue reading The Thing about Mary
Just what does it mean when Jesus said “You are the salt of the earth.” That phrase doesn’t have much meaning for us today but it was very clear to those who lived 2,000 years ago. About the only thing we hear about salt today is that we are getting too much of it in our diets. Too much salt can result in … Continue reading Salt of the Earth?
I’m going to move away from my focus on the red letters to look a little at what St. Peter said in the book of Acts Acts 2:14-21 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These … Continue reading Christian Doublespeak?
Matt 19:24 Again I tell you, 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.” Putting a camel through an eye of a needle sounds like an impossible task! That is unless the needle is the size of a building. Will there be no rich men (or women) in … Continue reading The curse of riches
There is a wide disparity of opinion about how true to Christ mega-churches are. I probably fall somewhere in the middle of that opinion. As I see it, the pastor of the small church that I currently attend doesn’t have much good to say about any of them. He seems to say that, in order to appeal to the most number of people, they dilute … Continue reading How about those mega-churches?
Subtitle: [Fellowship of Believers] Here are today’s red letters: Matt 18:20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Why did Jesus say it takes two or three coming together in his name in order for him to be with them? Why not just one? I think it is because Jesus knew it would be difficult to be … Continue reading Is it easy to be a Christian by yourself?
Many Christians and churches today practice to varying degrees what I call fortress mentality. These Christians almost never associate with anyone outside of their church. They only listen to Christian broadcasts and read only Christian books and media. It is almost as if they believe that if you are part of this world they will somehow be polluted by it and lose their faith. The … Continue reading Christian Fortress Mentality
We most often think of religious persecution as one religion persecuting another. For instance Christians against Muslims (the Holy Wars). But we must remember that one of the reasons that there are so many different Christian denominations around today is that in the past Christians were persecuting other Christians over differing beliefs. I recently took a trip to Bishop Hill in Illinois. I had been … Continue reading Christians persecuting Christians
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