Tag: Culture
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Refuting Paul’s Attackers
The Apostle Paul has gotten a bad rap for centuries, mostly based on his antagonists’ misunderstanding/ignorance. Our purpose here is to review the attacker’s charges in some detail and demonstrate why they’re mistaken. In so doing, we’ll look at his criticisms in antiquity from both Jewish-Christian and Gentile-only factions of the early church, as well as from contemporary critics who contend Paul’s messages are counter to Jesus’.
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Life in a Moral Cesspool
The US today is infected by a cancerous malignancy that has nearly completely destroyed the healthy portions of its host. The difference between a cultural malignancy and a biological one is that the cultural form has an attitude. It rejoices in its destruction. It celebrates the death of the healthy, unlike the biological which is simply a death-creation machine. Where did this disease start? In the classroom. A century ago, the education establishment was infiltrated by Marxists. Decade after decade, their influence in that establishment grew to the point that today, the majority of teachers in public education are if…
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What, Or Who, Are the Bible’s Heavenly Beings?
One of the more obscure concepts in the Bible for me has been the idea of Heavenly beings. I say it is obscure because when they are mentioned in texts they remain quite enigmatic, and opinions among biblical scholars and theologians concerning the nature of these beings vary all over the map. In diving into this subject we have to keep in mind that the question is: “What was in the mind of the biblical authors when they referred to a ‘divine council’, or ‘sons of God’, or ‘hosts of heaven’”, NOT what the reality is (something I contend we…
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Groaning With the Spirit
Rom 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” A recent post on social media mentioned an interview with NT Wright (A Deep-Dive into the Book of Romans: Dr. N.T. Wright – Theology in the Raw) in which he makes a point regarding the above (and other Romans’) passages of Paul that for me was both startling and eye-opening. Let’s look at Wright’s narrative of the Romans story, and unpack his startling point.
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The New America
The New America could care less what their country is or represents. They’re only concerned with themselves. The New America is the product of failed public education, failed parenting, failed social policies, open borders, and not just resistance to achievement but disdain for any, ANY differentiation of one vs another on the basis of an individual’s achievement. This is the state of the union today.
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Developing Spiritual Fitness
Most of us think about our spiritual lives (when we think of them at all) as cerebral, passive things: things that just are, likely supported by some “quiet time”, perhaps some Bible reading, and prayer. However, our spiritual strength is only truly developed when, like a muscle in our body, it is stressed, and stressed repeatedly.
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Implementing God’s Kingdom on Earth
The Kingdom of God is the precinct in which its citizens interact with each other and outsiders per God’s will. So, as Christians, how does God want us to act both to model and to implement His Kingdom “on earth as it is in Heaven”? Implementing the Kingdom of God “on earth, as it is in Heaven” is more than an enterprise of personal transformation. It is also an enterprise of transforming the society in which we live to reflect its values. Here we intend to analyze how Christians caring for others and desiring to transmit God’s blessing to as…
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What is the Christian’s Calling?
There are three polar opposite popular opinions these days as to what it is the Christian is called to do. The first is that the Christian calling is to do essentially nothing. This is the view held, in whole or in part, by the vast majority of those who identify with the Reformed Church tradition, convicted as they are by the doctrine of God’s Grace. These folks’ understanding is that God is in complete control of the outcome of society, and so they are at best incidental to His Sovereign decision. Some who hold this opinion share it only up…
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Christ’s Cultural Revolution
Most people including self-professed Christians have no inkling of the enormity of the transformation of their everyday existence Christ prescribed. His prescriptions so thoroughly upended the culture of first-century Jews that they concluded He had to be eliminated.
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The Chimera of Being a “Good” Person
Most everybody not only wants to be a “good” person but thinks they currently are. Such self-assessments are natural, and possibly critical in maintaining a sense of self-worth — of your psychological wellbeing. As this article points out, everyone thinks they’re good. More than that, they think they’re better than most everybody else. But how can everybody be right about this?
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The Narcotic of Moral Superiority
Just sitting here, listening to a bit of the media frenzy following Trump’s statements on the Charlottesville tragedy, and wondering if the genie is now truly out of the bottle. He said the apparently unsayable – that both sides of the confrontation shared blame. You can’t say that in the media’s America. After all, we’re talking about Nazis here – vile, evil, haters of people different than them. The story being pushed is that this confirms that Trump and everyone associated with him have exposed themselves as just such vile, evil, white supremacists.
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Christianity in the Age of ‘Whatever?’
Lots of people write blogs. Very few people actually read them. So why this one? Recently I’ve been absolutely stunned by the power of the delusion our society is suffering regarding truth, good and evil. In this perverse worldview, people who elect to strap on explosives and detonate them, or fire automatic weapons at unsuspecting […]
