Difficulty
A friend of mine posted recently a question on Facebook about “difficult” passages in the bible and how that affects our conception of God. Specifically he was talking about 1 Samuel 15 when God orders the complete destruction of the Amakelites by Saul. The Israelites were to destroy all the men, women and children in the village and then kill all the livestock. Saul had no problem killing all the people, but the best of the livestock was kept for “sacrifice.” Samuel rebukes Saul for not fulfilling all of God’s orders. The Old Testament is littered with the bodies of the enemies of Israel as well as disobedient Israelites. I find these passages extremely troubling to say th eleast. In our modern times, we regard the...
It’s a Miracle!
In our latest adult Sunday School series, we have been studying the Old Testament “Miracle” stories. And it has been interesting because a lot of these stores remained stuck in my mind as kid’s stories because, let’s face it, for most of us our first real exposure was coloring pages, sticker books or flannel graphs involving a large whale or the sun or a talking donkey. And for me, at least, I didn’t think much about these stories again until I began teaching in children’s church. When we were kids, the stories remained largely stores about miracles. In fact, for a lot of the stories, when I started looking at them again, I could only remember the miracle itself and had only a fuzzy recall of what led to the miracle and...
Rapture
So- According to http://www.wecanknow.com/ the rapture is tomorrow. And you know how I found out about it! I find it upsetting when non-believers get such a great chance to mock Christianity. They are able to take this one guy, who by the way has already predicted this once, and use him to make fun of the rest of us. I also wonder why so many folks are obsessed with the end times. We aren’t promised tomorrow anyway. End times or not, we should be living each day as our last, shouldn’t...
Church
Last week, I had the privilege of working with a group of volunteers from a church up the road from me as they went out to help people clean up and recover from the storms that came through the area. It was a powerful day. I saw a lot of hurting and a lot of damage; but I also saw a lot of love. When I got home, I wrote the following: I experienced church today. I do not mean that I went to a building and sang songs and heard a message. I mean that I spent time in fellowship, touching lives, trying by all means to give a little healing to people who were hurting. As I heard folks being told, “Get down to the church, there is plenty to eat. Get on down there, let us take care of this. You’ve been through a lot, we got this.” As names...
The Darkest of Days and the Holiest of Days
Wow, the holiest day of the year is almost upon us. The day of resurrection, of hope and of the eternal life and light of our Lord. And isn’t it interesting that today, just two days before the holiest day is the darkest of days. Good Friday. The day we commemorate the death of our Lord. The sin of the world placed upon the embodiment of the Holy of Holies as He breathed His last. The horrible day when the Creator was rejected, humiliated, beaten and killed by those He created. On this day we mourn. And I think that what we should mourn is our own part in the death of the Saviour. But then there is Easter. The day on which a broken, sinful world is given Hope. We rebel, but our Father patiently awaits our return. For He so loved us. ...