James MacDonald recently posted “Five Things We Do Instead of Preach.” I won’t reiterate the points he made, all of which are valid. I once had a pastor tell me that he was too busy to prepare sermons, which was why he bought and borrowed series from well-known ministries rather than write his own. Sure, he… Read More »
Recently, someone showed me a “new worship song”. They were so excited about the way it made them feel closer to God. The “new worship song” opened with a pretty, melodic piano piece and was then followed by a single phrase – something like “I want to see you” – repeated five or six times… Read More »
Myths are powerful things. They are stories that might have some grounding in truth but are usually expanded far beyond their original scope. They drive and control the lives of those who accept them as fact without considering whether they align with reality. Recently, I sent a link to this article from Jon Nicol about worship… Read More »
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWqA1Z4lPHw] When I was learning the guitar, my dad had a whole bunch of blues tablature books. There were some modern players like Jeff Beck and Jerry Garcia, but most of his books were about acoustic, finger style blues. I cut my teeth on stuff like “Black Snake Moan” by Lemon Jefferson and old, old… Read More »
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTmD_bqAIIs] Ross Parsley was the worship pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. If the congregation’s name sounds familiar, that’s because you probably heard it on the news. In 2007, the senior pastor Ted Haggard resigned because he was outed by a male prostitute he had been paying for sex and crystal meth. The… Read More »
As a pastor, I am a teacher of the Scriptures. I spent most of my work life studying the Scriptures either alone or with a group. When someone becomes a follower of Christ, the most important purchase they can make is a Bible of their own. This single book is the revelation of Christ, and… Read More »
Around 5,000 years ago, there were three languages spoken in the Middle East that have no relationship whatsoever to any other known language – present or ancient. These three languages – Sumerian, Elamite and Hattic – are older than the pyramids. They are older than even the Egyptians. We have no clue where these languages… Read More »
Amorites, Ammonites, Jebusites, Edomites, blah-blah-ites. What’s with all these -ites in the Bible? Sometimes the most confusing thing about reading the Bible is all of the names. Because the early translators used a sort of English shorthand for lots of different idioms, it gets overwhelming and redundant to have all these -ites and not know… Read More »
There are a lot of Herodians in the Gospels and Acts. It gets pretty confusing if you’re not keeping a score card. Herod the Great and His Kids They all descend from Herod the Great, who the gospel of Matthew says was ruling as King of the Jews when Jesus was born. He died in 4-3… Read More »
Among students of the Scriptures, it is often hard to discern the theories from the facts. Someone in one generation develops an idea, and the next generation – who learned the idea in their college classrooms – teaches it as fact. Nowhere is this better illustrated than the theory of the “historical Jesus” which fuels… Read More »
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