Do You Know What is Biblical?

Evangelicals talk about being biblical a lot. Do you know what is and isn’t biblical? I find that many Christians don’t actually know the Bible that well. Too often when a Christian talks about biblical, what they actually have in mind is something which they heard a speaker or author say is biblical. On top of this, many conservative evangelicals have the view that everyone else is against us and therefore we need to fight others in order to support our beliefs. So some Christians are ready to fight to the proverbial death over something which they were only taught is biblical and important, but isn’t something they know to be biblical from having read and understood the Bible for themselves. My point in writing this is to encourage and Continue reading →

Questions: God’s Love?

Dale Fincher recently shared a short video in which a pair of prominent theologians speak. He used this as a launching point for discussing God’s love. This video sparked a number of questions in my mind. Watch the video and consider the following:

What do you think? Is it dangerous to share God’s love? Does that make people apathetic? What do we mean (or think of) when we talk about love and/or God’s love? Do we think of love only as soft and sappy? Does Jesus fit our picture of love? Do people need to have the “hell scared out of them”? Is the fear of God’s wrath the door to salvation? For everyone? Or do only some people need this? Does God’s love need to be balanced with “truth” or “wrath”, etc.? Are those things in tension? Does God “detest the wicked”?

photo credit: Lex”i”con via photopin Continue reading →

Quotes From “Life After Art”

Select quotes from “Life After Art” by Matt Appling.

(As a young child) “Creating just made you incredibly, unabashedly happy, fulfilled, and satisfied… That moment in time so long ago was the freest you have ever been in your entire life.” (p. 23)

“Somewhere along the way children learn that failure is something to be feared, rather than to be learned from and embraced.” (p. 113)

“Fear of failure looms over everyone in some way. Somewhere in your life, you are holding back, hiding yourself from others, despite what you want to do. You want to do something fun. You want to share with others. You want to be generous with yourself. But you perceive the consequences of failure to be too great. So you become a self-fulfilling Continue reading →

Worrying About Giving the Appearance of Sin Is Not Biblical

I’ve addressed this before but it has come up again. I think it’s worth revisiting. The idea that Christians should avoid appearing like they might be sinning is (in my impression) a widely held belief among conservative evangelicals. Since this is my background, I was surprised to discover not too long ago that this idea isn’t biblical. This stems from a misunderstanding of 1 Thessalonians 5:22 in certain English translations. The King James version translates this verse as “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” With few exceptions, the only other translations to use the word “appearance” are either other versions of the King James or are themselves well over a century old. Nearly all modern translations say “every form of evil” or “every Continue reading →

Questions: Relationships

  • Do you believe that God should be the one to fulfill all our needs? Does the fact that God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone (Genesis 2:18) conflict with this idea?
  • In saying it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, did God mean that it wasn’t good for Adam to be unmarried or simply without other human companionship?
  • Is family merely biological or something else?
  • What is the difference between friendship and marriage?
  • What is the purpose of dating? Marriage? Friendship? Family?
  • Where does the idea that one’s spouse should be their best friend come from?
  • What is the relative importance/priority of various relationships: spouse, friends, family, other members of your church? From where do these priorities come?

Book Review: Through My Windows

The rap artist known as Soup the Chemist a.k.a. Super C (probably best known for his project S.F.C.) recently released a book titled “Through My Windows”. The subtitle of the book, “The History Behind Holy Hip Hop”, is a bit misleading. In reality, this is Soup’s autobiography. He was one of the earliest “holy hip hop” artists, and he was involved longer than most. So one does learn some about “holy hip hop” from reading his book. Yet the book is Soup’s reflections rather than a history of the genre.

Soup moves between telling stories and sharing things he’s come to believe in. He does more of the former early on, then shifts toward the latter late in the book. The teaching part—or almost preaching at times—I felt was the weaker Continue reading →

What Does It Mean To Be Loved?

It’s one thing to define love, but what does it mean to be loved?

I believe many people are familiar with the “love languages“. Understanding these can be very helpful to marriage. However, I think it’s unfortunate that they’ve often only been applied to marriage or dating relationships. This is because—as I’ve said before—our love languages don’t change in our other relationships outside marriage/dating.

  • If someone’s primary love language is words of affirmation, are they being loved if they aren’t routinely receiving encouragement and appreciation?
  • If someone’s primary love language is acts of service, are we loving them if we never do anything for them?
  • If someone’s primary love language is gifts, are they feeling love if they Continue reading →

“Heaven”—A Beatiful Horizon

It’s been brought to my attention more than once how the common vision of heaven is far from the picture we get from careful study of the Bible. The popular ideas of heaven have us floating on clouds like we imagine angels do (which also aren’t very biblical in many cases). Or if not this extreme, at least we think of heaven as an existence in some spiritual realm. What if I told you that followers of Jesus won’t spend eternity in heaven? Does that shock you? Do you know that this is what the Bible tells us?

I found it interesting how N.T. Wright points out that in America, we seem to be much more interested in debating the nature of hell than we are heaven. I think that’s because the gospel of evangelicalism is that Jesus saves us from Continue reading →

Honoring Truth — Allowing for Questions (A Follow Up)

I think some people are afraid of questions related to their beliefs. They fear that they may not have all the answers. More importantly, they fear that their beliefs may be found to be deficient. However I don’t think we should dissuade people from asking questions. After all, if they are seeking the truth and what we believe is true, shouldn’t that be the conclusion they eventually come to? And even if we’re worried they won’t, can we effectively keep them from wondering by preventing them from asking the question?

Unanswered questions don’t mean that a belief is false. Many people consider science to be among the most reliable knowledge that we have. However there’s hardly a limit to the amount of questions science hasn’t answered. Continue reading →