This is the second of a two part post, to read the first part click here
Where does faith then come from? We have seen that faith does not come from oneself and thus any notion of a person simply “believing more” is ridicules. Faith finds its origin and completion fully and only from Christ. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…” (Heb 12:2) God had blessed mankind with varying degrees of faith, which when we realize that faith is not our own it leads us to soberness in our position before God. Continue Reading »
Faith is an interesting concept, one that most people seem to be quite confused about. We hear constantly about faith vs. reason, as if there is a contradiction in terms. Some see faith as simply whatever silly thing it is that you wish to believe in and has been made into a platitude with little meaning like “hope” has become. Christians are not making it any easier; a common evangelistic tract has a train with “fact” as a locomotive that pulls faith behind it, as if it was a simple matter of scientific investigation, or having the right knowledge. I know in my periods of extreme doubt I was told by my friends to “just believe” as if I could simply produce faith within me and still be honest with myself. So what is faith, and were does it come from? Continue Reading »
Those who get into as many theological discussions as I do know of quite a few conversations that have involved the term “heresy” and less so the term “apostate.” Unfortunately, most people don’t use these terms properly, often they don’t know that those words mean anything other than something to call someone who you do not agree with. Heretic or apostate is not the equivalent of a Christian expletive, and if we reduce them to that sentiment then we will have no definitive statement for those who truly are heterodox or who have defected from the faith. Continue Reading »
So I just spent about half an hour fixing my post “What Youth Ministry Isn’t” because it would not render correctly in IE. It rendered completely fine in Firefox, Opera, and even in the Google Chrome beta, but not in IE7. And the clincher of it all, is that the problem was that I copy and pasted from my Microsoft Word program. So a Microsoft web browser is not able to handle the code from a Microsoft word processor but all three of the other non-microsoft programs were able to handle it just fine… go figure. So I transfered it over to a plain text format and it worked just fine, of course I did have to go into the html and get ride of all of the left over code because even with the deleted text Office left some of the coding behind. I did end up loosing my clipart in the post, but I can live with that, at least I got it to work. I could always go back and put the picture back in, but its not really that important. It just seems like Internet Explorer is always playing catch up, I mean even the new IE 8 beta’s “new” features include crash recovery, improved CSS compliance, privacy mode, a true full screen mode, and a malware filter, basically features that the other browsers already have. Oh well, at least it’s all free and I don’t have to pay for any of it.
Within Calvinist theology there is an issue known as lapsarianism, which deals with the eternal decrees that God made regarding the fall of mankind. The two main views of this are called supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. Historically the only confessions to contain a stance have been partial to the infra view, however, none have condemned a supra view either. I think the best way to explain these two views is to simply show the order with which they explain God’s decrees.
Here is a nice little quote that you all may find interesting…
“When the Spartans marched into battle they advanced with cheerful songs, willing to fight; but when the Persians entered the conflict, you could hear, as the regiments came on, the crack of whips by which the officers drove the cowards to the fray. You need not wonder that a few Spartans were more than a match for thousands of Persians, that in fact they were like lions in the midst of sheep. So let it be with the church; never should she be forced to reluctant action, but full of irrepressible life, she should long for conflict against everything which is contrary to God. Were we enthusiastic soldiers of the cross we should be like lions in the midst of herds of enemies, and through God’s help nothing would be able to stand against us.” - Charles Spurgeon
We look down upon our youth. We keep from teaching them any sound theology and we are obsessed with making things “relevant” to them. Relevant basically means, “Don’t have sex, don’t smoke, and don’t do drugs… but if you have to do one of those things then smoke.” And this is what we hand them, the most doctrinal truth we give is some distorted view of God’s love or some story about Moses or David that they have heard for years. I kid you not, I once had to go over curriculum with High Schoolers and the questions were “What do you feel Jesus’ view on drugs is?” and “Do you think Jesus would go to parties?” Continue Reading »
Bush, Miller and Michelob are still the most famous beers in America, however there is a growing trend of people who are looking for something more from their beer. Beer is no longer simply the beverage of Sunday afternoon football and drunken frat parties of mass quantities. Beer is now being seen as a meal in itself, much like the connoisseurs of Wine view their indulgence. But for those who have only known PBR the task may seem daunting, Pale Ales, Doppel Bocks, Trappists, IPA’s… the list goes on, so I have made a simplified list that may help those who wish to start drinking good beer but just don’t know where to start. Continue Reading »
Something is wrong with the church in America. We stifle those who want to serve God and Pastors try to conform people to their own agenda. We have become a business, and those same skills we look for in the business world we look for in our Ministers. The following list is a tirade that I wrote at 1:00 in the morning about the idiotic ways the church looks for pastoral positions or volunteer ministry and seems oblivious about. Continue Reading »
Those who get into as many theological discussions as I do know of quite a few conversations that have involved the term “heresy” and less so the term “apostate.” Unfortunately, most people don’t use these terms properly, often they don’t know that those words mean anything other than something to call someone who you do not agree with. Heretic or apostate is not the equivalent of a Christian expletive, and if we reduce them to that sentiment then we will have no definitive statement for those who truly are heterodox or who have defected from the faith. 
Within Calvinist theology there is an issue known as lapsarianism, which deals with the eternal decrees that God made regarding the fall of mankind. The two main views of this are called supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. Historically the only confessions to contain a stance have been partial to the infra view, however, none have condemned a supra view either. I think the best way to explain these two views is to simply show the order with which they explain God’s decrees.
Bush, Miller and Michelob are still the most famous beers in America, however there is a growing trend of people who are looking for something more from their beer. Beer is no longer simply the beverage of Sunday afternoon football and drunken frat parties of mass quantities. Beer is now being seen as a meal in itself, much like the connoisseurs of Wine view their indulgence. But for those who have only known PBR the task may seem daunting, Pale Ales, Doppel Bocks, Trappists, IPA’s… the list goes on, so I have made a simplified list that may help those who wish to start drinking good beer but just don’t know where to start.