May 2021 – Page 3

Live Like It’s True

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021Leave a comment

Have you ever had someone be really unkind to you and then expect you to listen to what they had to say? I suspect you weren’t quite as interested at that point as they wanted you to be. There’s a lesson here when it comes to sharing our faith. As we continue in our series, Tell Someone, instead of turning to tips and tricks for effective evangelism, we’re taking a pause to talk about something we have to have in place before we start doing it (and I’m not talking about prayer). What is this thing? Read on to find out.

Live Like It’s True

In a headline that grabbed not a little attention a couple of weeks ago, the Gallup polling organization released a survey on religious participation in the United States. They found that for the first time since the organization began tracking this particular bit of data in 1937, church membership had fallen below 50% of the population. In other words, for the first time…perhaps in our entire history…less than half of the country reports being a member of a church. The problem runs deeper than just that, though. These folks who are leaving behind their church membership are overwhelmingly not just leaving that behind, they are abandoning the Christian faith entirely.

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Timothy 1:7

May 14, 20212 Comments

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

For most of the history of this nation, the Christian church sat in the seat of power. Modern skeptics don’t like to admit this, but the United States was formed on the basis of ideas that were rooted in the Christian worldview. Yes, they were heavily influenced by several pre-Christian Greek philosophers, but the basic ideas of liberty for all and a limited government were directly influenced by thinkers who studied the Scriptures and sought to apply the principles they gleaned on the scale of nations. Times change, though. So do cultures and dominant worldviews. We are no longer in the place of cultural or political power we once held. Some note this fact with glee, others with weeping and gnashing of teeth. The question for we who are still in the church to answer, though, is this: What are we going to do now? Paul offers some advice to Timothy here that is worth heeding.

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Morning Musing: Mark 10:26-27

May 13, 2021May 13, 20212 Comments

“They were even more astonished, saying to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Looking at them, Jesus said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God, because all things are possible with God.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the more memorable illustrations I remember from by days in youth group was when we were all given a coconut and told to figure out how to break it open. We all got pretty creative. I think my group went outside and smashed it on the ground for all we were worth. We made some dents, but didn’t ever get much more than that. It wasn’t until the leaders gave us a little prompting that we finally realized the trick. We needed to ask for help. It was not something we were going to be able to do on our own. Once we asked for help, our leaders gave us a hammer, and we were set. The task was a fairly easy one to accomplish, but it wasn’t going to be able to happen until we got the help we needed. The whole point was that this is how salvation works. The task of salvation is a fairly easy one for us to accomplish…but not on our own. We take this kind of thing as a matter of course in the church, but there was a time this was pretty big news. This morning we’re going to look at one of those times.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 10:23-25

May 12, 20212 Comments

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were astonished at his words. Again Jesus said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In February of 1848, a pair of German philosophers published a pamphlet in England at the behest of the Communist League. The pamphlet made a small splash at the time it was published, but it would go on to become one of the most consequential literary works of the last two hundred years. This was not because of its literary eloquence or artistry, but because it introduced some powerful ideas which were eventually bought into by some powerful people who attempted to put them into practice on a national scale. The world has never really recovered. The pamphlet, of course, was the Communist Manifesto, and the philosophers were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Now, neither man cared a bit about the Christian faith, but they have had many ideological followers who do claim such a banner, and have tried again and again to reconcile the ideas of Marx and Engels with the ideas of Jesus. This passage is one of the most important of such efforts. Let’s see if we can’t get our hearts and minds around what Jesus was saying here this morning.

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Morning Musing: Mark 10:21-22

May 11, 2021July 18, 2023Leave a comment

Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. (CSB – Read the chapter)

My oldest son learned about figurative language this year in school. I know that because, thanks to Covid, most of his lessons about it happened over my shoulder in my office. He learned about and has gotten pretty good at identifying oxymorons, idioms, similes, metaphors, and the like. One of the items that didn’t make his list is the paradox. A paradox is a statement that seems totally absurd, but proves true upon further examination. Of all the paradoxes there have ever been, this man seeking the source of eternal life from Jesus discovers one of the most challenging of the bunch.

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