Originally published March 29, 2017:
A few days ago, someone told me that her three-year-old godson met his mother when she came to pick him up from preschool, greeting her with the words, “Look Mommy — I’m wearing a dress!” Horrified, his mother asked him why he was in a dress. He pointed to his teachers and claimed, “Them gave it to me!”
“Oh no,” the teachers argued, “we gave him a choice. We want our children to use costumes to express themselves.”
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This is the third Tuesday I’ve written about The Four Spiritual Laws, a popular evangelism tool that Christians have used over the past 50 years. This tract doesn’t contain false teaching per se, and it can be helpful in presenting the Gospel. So I don’t condemn anybody who uses it to open a conversation with an unbeliever.
But as I’ve demonstrated here and here, The Four Spiritual Laws fall short of giving a fully orbed explanation of why people need Christ. In many respects, it offers a man-centered theology in place of a theology that revolves around the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve been writing this short series to help you develop a more complete understanding of the Gospel that you can in turn utilize in witnessing to others.
The Third Spiritual Law states that “Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him alone can we know God personally and experience His love.” It quotes Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and John 14:6 to substantiate its point.
I’d agree with most of this section, and I think the writers chose their Scriptures well. Nothing in this section falls outside the bounds of orthodoxy.
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When I lived in Memphis, two friends often volunteered to drive me to church in the wheelchair accessible van that I had. One friend had a Master’s Degree (in what, I don’t know) while the other had only completed a GED.
The three of us always found it amusing that the one with the GED consistently had to show the one with the Master’s Degree how to use the tie-downs to secure my wheelchair. Consistently, I said. Every. Single. Time. We’d say, “So much for higher education!”
Thankfully the one with the Master’s Degree had a good sense of humor.
As cute as this story is, it illustrates a point the apostle Paul made about the disparity between human wisdom and the wisdom of God.
Read More »Originally posted April 4, 2018
I believe evangelicals of the 21st Century have by and large lost the sense that God has saved us for His honor and glory. As we’ve incorporated Charismatic teaching and psychological principles into our weakened version of Christianity, we’ve accepted the mistaken idea that God exists to heal our bodies, expand our bank accounts, make our marriages satisfying and remove all temptation from us. We conveniently forget why He calls us to Him in the first place.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ~~1 Peter 2:9 (ESV)
Anyone can distort the Bible into false promises of health, prosperity and your best life now, insisting that God wants us to be happy. But, even though the Lord is a good Father Who gives good gifts to His children, He doesn’t give those gifts to Read More »
This time of year, many bloggers share their most popular posts from the past 12 months. Ever the nonconformist, I’ve decided to celebrate the year’s end by featuring favorite articles of mine that my readers seem to have overlooked. Today I’m posting one I wrote back in March.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, my reputation for practical jokes was such that I got blamed even for those I didn’t orchestrate. My personal favorite was in honor of my friend Bob’s birthday.
Bob shared my dislike for cats (which we both greatly exaggerated for the purpose of teasing each other). When his birthday rolled around, I gave his phone number to my friend Terry, whom Bob had never met. At my instruction, Terry told Bob that he was from the SPCA, and wanted to deliver a kitten to him that afternoon.
Bob declined the offer, and wandered out of his room in bewilderment telling his housemate, “I just got the strangest phone call.” Before he could recount what Terry had said, his housemate doubled over with laughter, causing Bob to remember that I’d spent time with that housemate a week earlier. “DebbieLynne!” he shouted knowingly.
I’m still proud of that one!
These days I have fewer opportunities to play practical jokes, largely because I don’t have an accomplice. Also, I have less energy than I did back then. Practical jokes take work!
But, as much as I miss that part of my life, I have changed into a more serious woman. Oh, I still laugh a lot — a robust sense of humor is downright necessary to be married to John, let me tell you! At the same time, the world has gotten much darker since those carefree days. Sins that most people (even non-Christians) considered shameful back then are now so openly celebrated that society shames anyone who dares to speak against them.
Although as Christians we have incalculable joy (which we should express freely and often), Scripture also encourages us to be sober minded. In his letter to Christians living in societies that were hostile to the Gospel, the apostle Peter urged his readers to take life seriously.
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” ~~1 Peter 1:13-16 (ESV)
This isn’t a time for excessive fun and games, dear ladies. The world’s determined descent into open approval of perversion and ghoulish practices, such as homosexuality and abortion, necessarily mean that we face serious persecution here in the United States of America. Consequently, we don’t have a whole lot of time to openly proclaim the Gospel.
Truthfully, I get annoyed by all the tagging games on Facebook and Twitter. Sure, I use those platforms to update people on our lives, and very occasionally I’ll post a funny comment. But my primary purpose in using social media is to point people to Christ. As America grows darker, I believe Christians need to double down on our efforts to shine the light of Christ.
So as much as I love a good practical joke, I no longer want to be known for playing them. I’d prefer to invest my time and energy making Christ known.
The argument goes that, since Jesus ate with people that the Pharisees regarded as sinners, He accepted them as they were. As a result, He would embrace those whom conservative Christians supposedly reject today. In particular, He would champion members of the LBGTQ community, and shame on conservative Christians for calling their sexual orientation sinful!
Christians who believe that homosexuality and transgenderism require repentance constantly hear that we should follow Jesus rather than following Bible verses that condemn homosexuality and transgenderism. Jesus, they remind us, hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, giving us an example to follow. When we dare to speak out against sexual sin — especially those sins under the LBGTQ umbrella — we face enormous censure for evidently failing to be Christlike.
But maybe we ought to look at an instance of Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors. In this episode, Jesus has just called Levi (also known as Matthew) to follow Him. Luke 5:28 plainly says, please notice, that Read More »
Originally published September 29, 2017
Through a variety of circumstances, I’ve recently been exposed to young women in the Millennial generation. With one notable exception, I don’t really like what I see. The irresponsibility and self-centeredness appalls and saddens me. This generation, from what I see, exchanges reason for experience and pragmatism, paying little attention to long-term ramifications of their decisions. They pay even less attention to how their behaviors affect others.
In short, they possess poor reasoning skills. As a result, they exercise poor judgment, and then cast themselves as innocent victims when they face the consequences of that poor judgment. Between the immediacy of social media and the indoctrination of liberal colleges and Hollywood, Millennials have never learned to think for themselves.
To be fair, those attitudes have definite roots in Read More »
Measured by today’s sensibilities, people would probably consider me a victim of childhood bullying. Neighborhood kids constantly called me names like “cripple,” “spaz” and “retard.” Mom intervened on the one occasion when the abuse became physical, but she did her best to teach me that verbal abuse could strengthen my character.
Her strategy probably wouldn’t fly nowadays.
Which explains the hypersensitive atmosphere pervading our culture presently. Just this past weekend, a gentleman on Twitter that I consider to be refreshingly chivalrous lamented the loss of the “women and children first” mentality. Almost immediately, a woman accused him of Read More »
Leslie A left a comment on yesterday’s blog post stating that her articles on the Protestant Reformation were also pretty much ignored by her readers. Okay, so I have assurance that my writing skills weren’t the reason my Reformation articles went over like a lead balloon. There’s a modicum of comfort in Leslie’s comment, weird though that may be.
I love my blogger friends!
As I thought about her comment (or more accurately, the apathy toward history that seems to characterize most people in our century), I couldn’t help wondering if the self-absorbed nature of our post-modern culture has something to do with it. Sure, we’re concerned about the myriad of problems in today’s church. After all, that’s the church we Read More »
Last week Amazon pulled books about “conversion therapy” (therapy helping people overcome homosexuality) from its website. Last week Facebook warned one of its users that posting a meme quoting 1 Timothy 2:12 was hate speech. Last week apologist James White cautioned his readers that our ability to speak out for Christ on mainstream social media platforms is quickly coming to an end.
Admittedly, such persecution is minor compared to things Christians in other countries endure for the sake of Christ. I’ve served as a contact person for missionaries in both our previous church and our current church — a position that allows me to read about people who receive physical torture for turning from Islam to Jesus Christ. A missionary from our former church regularly writes to me chronicling the intense suffering and resolute faith of a woman she led to Christ. Believe me, nothing American Christians presently face is anything like what that lady goes through on a daily basis.
At least not Read More »
