Month: January 2018

Knowing What’s True

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This past Sunday we kicked off a brand new teaching series at FBCO called, Reasons to Believe.  For the next several weeks we are going to tackle some common objections to the Christian faith, try to turn them on their heads, and show why, rather than offering reasons to not believe, they actually offer us very good reasons to embrace the Christian faith with even more tenacity than before.  This won’t necessarily be an easy journey, but it will be a good one.  I hope you’ll come along for the entire ride because in the end, we’ll see that having a relationship with Jesus is the most important reason to believe.  In this first part, we face head-on the notion that Christianity’s claim to be the exclusive pathway to truth and life isn’t nearly so arrogant as we are often taught.

 

Knowing What’s True

There’s an old story about a man on a quest for truth.  He wanted to know what was true and what was not so that he could dedicate his life to the truth.  His search eventually led him to seek out an obscure guru who was rumored to have spent much of his life pondering the question of truth.  As a result he was considered most wise on this particular topic.  When the man finally found the wise, old guru he posed his question to him: “How can I know what’s true and what’s not true?” Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Proverbs 26:4-5

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“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.  Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”  (ESV)

One of the most common criticisms of the Bible (usually made by people who have either not read it at all or else not read it closely) is that it is full of contradictions.  Places like this give these folks a great deal of ammunition.  At first read and even second and third, this is obviously a contradiction.  As one commentator noted, if these verses were located in different parts of the Bible it would seem the contradictory nature was exceedingly obvious. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Jeremiah 43:2

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“Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, ‘You are telling a lie.  The Lord our God did not send you to say, “Do not go to Egypt to live there…”‘”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel who hadn’t been taken off to Babylon as captives or killed in the process were scared.  The options before them didn’t seem good at all.  Some of their leaders had murdered the governor the Babylonians had put in place to rule over them.  They feared retribution was coming and would be painful when it arrived.  The various nations around them not only didn’t want to help, but were actively antagonistic toward them.  The only option that seemed to make sense was to head to Egypt in hopes that by coming as refugees from their mutual enemies in Babylon, they would be received graciously and not as a hostile force. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Timothy 3:12

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“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here is another place where we get realism instead of encouragement.  Yet how important is this reminder for those who are following Jesus?  If you want to follow Jesus well, you are going to face persecution of some kind.  In fact, if you’re not facing at least some amount of persecution, you may want to look at how you’re doing in the faith. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Timothy 5:4

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“But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

What follows here is Paul offering Timothy some advice on how to establish and create guidelines for a program of caring for widows in his church.  There is much to comment on here, but let’s settle now for a few observations on some themes. Read the rest…