For those of us who grew up with MAD magazine the title of this posting is very familiar. Alfred E. Neuman the main character in the magazine was constantly captioned to say that. I know I am giving my age away with this knowledge since Mad magazine was published in the 1950’s and that was ages ago for many bloggers. I regularly spent my 35 … Continue reading What me worry??

It’s time to get back on to the red letters so here goes: Luke 12:48 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. There are hard words for us in the first world countries, especially us in the United States. Some say these words only refer to … Continue reading How fortunate we are!

This is a continuation of the last post where I covered George Washington’s religious beliefs. I will conclude this topic by talking about Thomas Jefferson.  Thomas Jefferson — Jefferson was undoubtedly the strongest advocate for religious freedom of the Founding Fathers. This was quite evident when he composed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777. Jefferson was definitely raised in a Christian household. He … Continue reading The Faith of our Founding Fathers – continued

I know I promised a book review for this post but something else has been on my mind lately so the book review post will come on Friday. Is it OK to question things about your faith, your religion, your theology, or must you take everything at face value with the so called “leap of faith”?  To me, that is a very important question. I seem to be … Continue reading Why???

I am making an unusual Tuesday post to add a little to the study of the Lord’s prayer.  As I mentioned before the only part of the prayer that I have significant trouble with is the petition “lead us not…” I recently received a message from a good friend trying to help me figure this out. Here is his comments: If you read Luke 22:40, … Continue reading Lead us not…. another view

Now that I am done with the “official Lord’s prayer” I want to address the red letter that come immediately after the prayer. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. I understand that Jesus by dying on the cross … Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer (the epilog)

We are now at the final part of the Lord’s Prayer which is: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ‘ I must admit these are some of the most challenging words in this prayer for me. I certainly don’t expect God to tempt me with sin. He did that to Job but I think that was a very … Continue reading The Lord’s Pray (and lead us not into temptation…)

We are now at the third part of the prayer which is Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Of course we depend on God for our very existence. If he doesn’t want us around then we would no longer exist. We have free will to make our own decisions but not whether we exist … Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer (Give us today…)

Continuing through the Lord’s prayer we come to the following petition: your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Even though He knows what is best for us He gave us free will to do what we choose. Many times this gets us into trouble but without free will we would just be robots who mindlessly do what we … Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer (your kingdom come…)

 Let me get to work on my interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. (see my previous post for more understanding if you missed it). Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Sometimes we forget just who God is. He is not a buddy across the backyard fence who we chat with from time to time. His knowledge and wisdom are beyond our comprehension. After all … Continue reading The Lord’s Prayer (Our Father in heaven)

  Matt 6:9-15 To me the Lord’s prayer is not as mysterious as some would like me to believe. I take the Lord’s prayer to be a call to action for Christians and not just a general statement by God. I don’t believe God wants any “couch potato Christians” but instead wants us to actively practice our faith. The individual petitions in the Lord’s prayer … Continue reading The Overall Theme of the Lord’s Prayer – My Interpretation

  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

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?

     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?

 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