What is Christianity – A Great Resource Free to Download

Here is a link to Steve Williams book What is Christianity. Steve used to preach at University City Church of Christ in Gainesville, FL and teaches at Amridge University (formerly Southern Christian). It is currently out of print but has been provided to download/print. It is an excellent resources that highlights our core beliefs in [...]

Gospel of John 8:12-59 – Jesus Gets Testy

John 8:12-59 contains some of the best known lines in John but they aren’t said to a loving, accepting mob of fervent believers. They are spoken to a mostly obnoxious and rebellious group in Jerusalem. In 8:12 Jesus says he is the light of the world. One of the great “I am” statements and one [...]

Zechariah 14 and Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade

The second half of Zechariah is probably the most difficult section of the Bible to understand. I am convinced that we never will figure out some of it. Because of this difficulty there are some sections that sound particularly humorous. For instance, Zechariah 14:20-21 reminds me of something from Monty Python and the Holy [...]

Gospel of John – Tidbits from Chapter 6

Passover/Exodus parallels in John 6:
John 6:4 tells us the Passover was near. The events that follow are the feeding of the 5000, Jesus walking on water, and then questions about mana and eating Jesus body.
If you remember back to the book of Exodus the order of events went something like this:

Passover meal
Crossing the Red Sea
Mana [...]

Mark Gungor On Men’s Sex Drive and Solomon’s Description of His Woman

Another great one from Mark Gungor…

And this one, Song of Solomon Girl. Someone in our 20s & 30s class joked that it would be really funny to dress up as the couple in Song of Solomon for Halloween based on these kind of descriptions. These are from a great DVD series [...]

Church Plans Bible Burning

Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, NC plans a book burning for Halloween [HT: Brian Nicklaus]. They are burning books they believe are Satanic. On the list…just about any version of the Bible other than the Authorized Version (KJV). They are even burning the NKJV! I guess that leaves me asking [...]

Bobby Valentine on Worship that (Dis)Pleases God

Great thoughts from Bobby V on worship. An excerpt,
“Can a person perform worship acts incorrectly, or the wrong acts altogether, and still be pleasing to God?” Another form of this question is “Can a person be baptized for the wrong reason and be pleasing to God?“
I think the question is misframed from the start. I [...]

Rob Bell on the 10th Commandment

Some really powerful and insightful words from Rob Bell at Catalyst regarding the 10th commandment (not to covet) and its application to ministries and ministers. Here is an excerpt from Out of Ur’s summary of his message,
“Rob professed his amazement at Christian organizations that rank the most significant churches and organizations based on size. And [...]

C. Michael Patton on Textual Criticism

Check out Patton’s easy to read Textual Criticism for Dummies post. It hits the highlights and is helpful to those who aren’t really familiar with what textual criticism is and the process it takes to come to an accurate text and translation today. Here is the link.

Comparing Our Worst to Their Best

I don’t know about you but I have a tendency to compare the worst moments of my faith to the best moments of those in scripture and wonder why I can’t be more like them or wonder why my faith is so weak. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to pick out their worst moments, [...]