Bible

How Much Yeast Have You Been Eating?

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Matthew 13:33
Jesus spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”

This is one of Jesus’ many “Kingdom parables” where He compares the Kingdom of God to something else in order to relate truth about how His Kingdom operates. And at first glance, this parable could be interpreted as God’s Kingdom positively affecting the world around it. However, I think if we dig a little deeper we’ll find something different.

In this parable Jesus used the Old Testament understanding of leaven along with an example from his culture to relate a truth about the Kingdom of God.

So what does the Old Testament (and parts of the New Testament) say about leaven? Well, according to the following passages, it is consistently shown in Scripture as exemplifying the presence of impurity or evil.

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Living by Grace through Faith

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

How does a person become a Christian? I think the majority of existing Christians would say that a person gets saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or by simply believing in Jesus or by accepting the free gift of grace from God. And any of these would be correct. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

However, when asked how a Christian becomes mature in their faith, most Christians will answer: by reading your Bible, doing daily devotions, praying often, going to every church service, getting connected to a small group, giving to the church and missions, by serving at your church, etc.

Not that doing any of those activities are bad––in fact, they’re all very good things to be involved with––but none the less, they are just activities. They are merely external events that we can choose to do.

Instead, I believe the way for a Christian to become spiritually mature is to live life the same way they received eternal life––by the grace of God through faith in Jesus. Let’s take a look at Galatians to study this a bit further.

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Keeping Scripture in Context

~ Joe ~ 2 Comments

Let’s say you find yourself discussing a Bible verse with a friend, and suddenly he says, “You’re taking that verse out of context!” You didn’t think you were taking it out of context, but how do you know?

The “out of context” claim is often used to stop arguments, but many times with no basis. Yet many times Bible texts are taken out of context and made to mean things which their authors never intended them to mean.

How do you respond to your friend?
How do you make sure that you are not taking Scripture out of context?
And what is context anyway? Continue reading →

We Must Hear Worthily

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

A.W. Tozer wrote an insightful piece entitled “We Must Hear Worthily” (part of his book The Root of the Righteous) in which he says:

It is carelessly assumed by most persons that when a preacher pronounces a message of truth and his words fall upon the ears of his listeners there has been a bona fide act of hearing on their part. They are assumed to have been instructed because they have listened to the Word of God. But it does not follow.

This is very true. How many times can each of us say we’ve sat and listened to sermons and yet don’t recall even the last the we heard; much less say that we were truly taught something that changed the way we live our day-to-day lives?

Now that’s not to say that every sermon has had no impact on our lives because some have! But what is the difference? Assuming that both sermons are taken from the Word of God, what makes one sermon a life impacting teaching and another just another forgotten preaching?

Some would say the difference is all on the part of the preacher; the way he delivers the message; the illustrations he uses in the message; the amount of emotion or humor that is involved; and so on. But I believe there is another element we need to consider…that being the hearer.

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I second that!

~ Joe ~ 2 Comments

Floating Axhead has a wonderful article called The Wal-Mart Way which does a great job of explaining how the modern church has tried to market itself and failed. The article mentions Wal-Mart’s new slogan of “Save Money. Live Better.” and compares it to the slogan of “Find God. Live Better.” that so many churches have slowly adopted. I fully agree with the article and appreciate Floating Axhead’s candidness on the topic.

Here are some of my thoughts.

Sam Walton may be right in saying, “There’s only one boss. The customer.” but that’s not how the church, the Body of Christ is organized and operated. The customer mindset may be fine for business but it’s not for church. In fact, I believe one of the biggest problems with church today is that people have brought the customer mindset into it. We believe that we are customers and the church is there to entertain us! And when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. People drive up and park there cars in large parking lots, walk into the building (which very rarely has a cross on it anymore), are greeted with warm hands and smiling faces, find a cushioned seat somewhere in the auditorium, and then…the music begins! They’ll have people welcome them from the platform and hand out “up coming events” literature to them. There will be musical numbers sung by the choir and soloists, and eventually, the main attraction — an eloquently delivered message from the minister. This whole time the “customer” has had to put forth no effort except for maybe dropping some money in the offering plate as it passes by. And many of them will only drop in as much as they think the show is worth!

Is this a picture of every church. Absolutely NOT!!! Is it a picture of your church? I hope not. But I know it is for many people.

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What Race are You Running?

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

A simple scan down yesterday’s listing of the FOXNews RSS feeds reveals there was:
1 story about a parrot that could speak English
2 stories regarding pop/tv stars
3 stories about scientific/technical achievements
6 stories about politics/economics
7 stories regarding death/killing/kidnapping
7 stories about war issues
8 stories covering sex acts/sex crimes

Not necessarily uplifting news! But I think Kathy Griffin’s story truly showed the pulse of our society. I’ve included a few snippets of the story below.

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Pits, Peaks, and Plateaus

~ Joe ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday, FOXNews.com had an article that covered a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential candidates talked about faith and values. One of the presidential candidates was Hillary Clinton who gets an “A” for effort regarding her talk on faith.

She had a few admirable statements, such as:

  • She probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.
  • “I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought.”
  • “I’m not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith.”
  • She was sustained by the prayers of others.

One of her last comments was, “At those moments in time when you are tested, it is absolutely essential that you be grounded in your faith,” and I think this statement is typical of most Americans. In fact, I think it exemplifies the status of American faith in God.

Although Clinton’s statement is definitely true, I think it’s almost more important to be grounded in your faith during the non-testing times.

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