Sellin’ Christ
Jesus never said “join me and your marriage will be blessed, your kids will be smart and you will have a good life.” But that is often how we attempt to sell Christianity. Even though most of us scoff at the Prosperity Gospel, there is still a version of Christianity that is tied in to the American Dream. I bring this up because I feel there has to be a better way to spread the Good News that isn’t trying to “sell” the Good News. It is hard, though. I mean the very nature of trying to tell someone why you think they should follow Christ is to try to convince them that it is better for them than what they are doing now. And within our culture we know, practice and have perfected the art of persuasion! It is so...
I know my excuse, what’s yours?
I just started a great book entitled, Make Poverty Personal: Taking the Poor as Seriously as the Bible Does. So far, it is a really challenging study of how we are told to deal with poverty in our society. I am not far into it so it could all far apart, but the beginning confronted me with some issues that I can too easily recognize. I have often heard the story of Moses and the burning bush. I have even heard that he was reluctant. But as I was reading this book, the author paraphrases five very specific excuses that Moses gives the Creator of the universe (Exodus 3-4). 1- Who do you think I am 2- Who are you, really Lord? 3-What will people think? 4-What skills do I really have for this? 5-Surely someone else can do this? When called by God to rescue...
Psalm 109
A couple of days ago, one of my friends posted the “Pray for President Obama, Psalm 109:8-9…” status. I am pretty sure you have seen this, it wasn’t the first time that I had. I am also sure they thought their little joke was harmless, at least I hope that they did. Just another example of trivializing scripture for a laugh. But when I read the verses listed, I had a couple of thoughts that got beyond the modern political climate. The first, obvious thought was, “wow, you really got to hate someone to wish their kids orphaned and their wife a widow.” That thought was almost immediately followed by, “wait, this is in the Bible.” This is a pretty severe curse that is being uttered here. Looking at...
A book you will like
“A Book You Will Like” is the title of an 1859 collection of writings by the Rev. James Smith. I ran across the following section on an entry from the Gospel Gripped blog, although when I started looking around it seems to be pretty popular. It is interesting that some things don’t often seem different now than back in the 19th century. The quoted section is this: I do not believe that you Christians believe your own creed–for if you were persuaded that things really are as your Bibles teach, and that we poor lost people were really going to such a dreadful place as you say Hell is–then you would act more humanely toward us. If you saw our houses on fire–you would run and help us to put the fire out; or if you saw us in danger of...
What do you look for?
Here is a quick and easy question for a Friday afternoon. What do you look for in a church? When you are looking for a church when you move to a new city or for any reason, what is it that you hope to find when you visit a house of worship? Is it the music that is most important? The preacher? The whole “vibe” of the Sunday morning service? How about the other six days of the week? Do you look for a church that offers a lot of bible studies? What type of missions do you look for in a church? If you had to boil it down to one thing, what would be the most important?