Bible

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Direction

“You can’t steer a ship that isn’t moving.” One of our pastors mentioned it again last Sunday, “God can’t direct you if you aren’t already moving.” We’ve all heard this admonition so many times. We assume it’s true. Isn’t it in the Bible somewhere?

Our culture has a thing about keeping busy. If we aren’t doing something every minute of every day, we worry that we’re wasting our lives. We aren’t being significant. We aren’t making a difference. And of course, everybody wants their lives to count for something that matters.

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Follow Your Heart

It’s graduation season and millions of graduates are getting all sorts of advice, some useful, and some not so much. The useful advice tends to be practical: eat your veggies, spend less than you earn, sort your laundry. (My college’s team color was an intense, bright red. By the end of the first month, most of the guys in my dorm had new t-shirts—and pink underwear.)

The more esoteric advice leaves a lot to the imagination: “Strive.” “Live your dreams.” “Be all that you can be.” Strive to do… what? The value of much advice like this depends largely on what a graduate’s goals are. Do they want to make the world a better place? Or is their goal to amass as much stuff (money, fame, power) as possible?

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False Witnesses

I was reading my Bible this morning when I came across these verses (Matthew 26:59-60):

The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.

When I’ve read this before, I’ve always dwelt on Jesus’ sinless nature, and how there wasn’t any real evidence so they had to invent something deserving of the death penalty. This morning, what caught my eye were the false witnesses.

I wondered… who were these witnesses? Did the Sanhedrin go looking for people to lie on their behalf? What would cause a person to testify falsely? Was there money involved? And in this case, they weren’t just lying. They were lying about God! We, of course, would never do such a thing!

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Is the Great Commission for Every Christian?

“My goal is that everyone in this church go on a short-term mission trip.”

Our Mission Pastor was talking to the “Global” Sunday School about our church’s mission strategy. I was sitting there, mostly nodding, until we came to this declaration. Everyone? Does God want that?

The Great Commission is a familiar passage to most Christians: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you….” (Matthew 28:19-20)

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It’s OK to Be Overwhelmed

 

“God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

We were going through a particularly trying time in our lives, and my friend was trying to be helpful.

The problem? Her advice wasn’t true. God had given me more than I could handle. The situation was overwhelming. I was exhausted, my nerves were frayed, and there was not even a glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I was beginning to consider the benefits of a nervous breakdown.

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A Bible Quiz

How well do you know your Bible?

After reading an article (on CNN’s “Belief Blog”) entitled “Actually, that’s not in the Bible,” I thought it would be fun to put together a little quiz. How much do we know about what the Bible really says? The answers are at the end, but no peeking until you’ve finished the test.

True or False

According to the Bible…

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The Bible is Better than Harry Potter!

Think of your favorite book, the one you read in one sitting because you just couldn’t bear to put it down. The Hobbit? One of the Harry Potter books? A best seller by John Grisham or Clive Cussler? I bet it wasn’t the Bible.

We agree that the Bible is important reading, but is it exciting? Once you know that Noah survives the flood, that David confesses his sin regarding Uriah and Bathsheba, and that Jesus rises  from the dead, you’ve got to admit that the Bible just isn’t that suspenseful. In fact, reading it often feels like hard work.

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Being a Know-It-All

As I wrote a couple of months ago, I was particularly struck by this passage in 2 Peter 1:5-8. It could be viewed as God’s steps to success:

… make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve shared some of my thoughts about faith and goodness; the next quality Peter mentions is knowledge.

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Need an Opinion? Ask for God’s!

I was originally planning to be the only blogger on the planet who didn’t comment on the Caylee murder trial verdict. In case you’ve been in a coma for the last several years, you know by now that Casey Anthony was declared “not guilty” in the murder of her daughter Caylee. Since I have only skimmed a few headlines pertaining to the case, I’m not qualified to have an opinion about the outcome, although that hasn’t stopped anyone else.

While I have largely ignored the trial, it’s pretty much impossible to ignore the outpouring of opinion. My friends’ facebook pages, the headlines on every news feed on my homepage, the assorted blogs I follow—all are consumed with the topic. You’d think nothing else of importance happened anywhere else on the planet.

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