“Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God.” J. Wesley
Reddit Questions #1 – Prayer, beginner Bible reading, and imaginary friends I have recently joined the throngs at Reddit (look for greggpj333), and one of the subreddits I am a member of is a place where non-believers can ask honest questions of believers. I have been active in this subreddit and wanted to publish some …
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I have a presence on social media, but I am careful with what I consume in that arena. One of the elements of social media that annoy me in particular is MEMEs. If you don’t know, a MEME is a picture or a graphic that has a short saying to make a point. Sometimes they are funny, but most times, they are profoundly annoying and terribly incorrect. Fallacies abound, and false information is ubiquitous. Therefore, I thought I would start a series breaking down some MEMEs that especially irk me. With that, let’s get to this edition’s disaster.
Let me ask you a question. What do you understand the gospel to be? Some might answer like this: "Accept Jesus as your Savior, and when you die, you will go to Heaven." Or "Put your faith in Jesus, and your sins will be forgiven." Or "Follow Jesus, and you will find meaning and purpose for your life." All of these answers are right – but they are only partially correct. These statements are parts of the gospel, but they are not the entirety of the gospel.
Welcome to the first in a series looking at the Kingdom of God (KoG). Through this series, I will be writing about how the KoG impacts our lives now as well as how we have something spectacular to look forward to in the future. To start this series, I want to look at how Jesus and the Bible talk about the KoG.
Many church trends have come and gone. The Christian church in all of its forms has ebbed and flowed between many different worship styles and many different liturgical movements. Most of these movements have been a reflection of culture. The Christian church should be sensitive to the culture without losing its identity. But like Indian …
Recently there was an article that came my way that challenged me in the way I think about how Christ followers should react to people that are transgendered. The article can be found HERE and relates how Korn guitarist and devoted Christian, Brian Welch, prayed for a young person who is transgendered. He made this …
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Jesus used the words “follow me” when calling the apostles. What was it about this calling that was different from other callings? Mark describes Jesus calling five of the twelve apostles in the passages 1:16-20 and 2:13-14. For Andrew, Simon, James, John, and Matthew, the call resulted in an immediate following (1:16-20). The calling of …
Continue reading "On Being a Disciple Thoughts on Mark 1 & 2"
Continuing his Motorcycle Monday series, Bob visits Yale.
Acts 8:9-23New International Version (NIV) Simon the Sorcerer 9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called …
"Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees[e] were fasting. People came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they …
Continue reading "Bridegrooms, unshrunk cloth, and new wineskins"
This concept of spiritual growth is faulty for several reasons. First, it neglects the second of the most important commandments, to love others as we love ourselves. Loving is a doing verb – it implies, in fact, necessitates action. Loving others requires us to go outside of our spiritual bunker. By loving others, we can …
This threw me at first. Aren’t disciplines something we should seek to do? Aren’t they actions that we do to develop our spiritual lives? Well, yeah, they are. And when I have read that suffering is a spiritual discipline, it took me a while to think and ponder on it, but it made sense. Disciplines help to …
“Consumer Christianity” does not offer deep answers to deep problems. Fast food offers a quick fill up of the belly with little to no nutritional value. In fact, eat fast food with regularity and you will find that your health will fail. The same is true with our spiritual life. Having a life of transformation …
The Wandering Wesleyan 