Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 6:18

“Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Bible is just an antiquated set of restrictive rules that were put in place centuries ago and without any understanding of what the modern world is like. They were hardened by a bunch of prude men who were looking to tell people what they could and couldn’t do with their own bodies. They look to limit our freedom and take all the real fun and joy out of life. The Scriptures often get a bad rap today and the lyrics often run right along those lines. As a result, when people hear that “the Bible” says they shouldn’t do X, Y, or Z, they often roll their eyes and do it anyway because life is better when it’s fun. Besides, modern science has conclusively shown that the Bible can’t be trusted. But what happens when modern research starts to discover that the Bible wasn’t – and isn’t – perhaps so wrong as we’d like to believe? Let’s ponder that question for just a bit together today.

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A Firm Anchor

If we are going to find peace in a world that has gone mad, we’re definitely going to need to reorient our thinking and turn to prayer, but while those two things are necessary, they aren’t sufficient on their own. We need something more. In this next part of our journey and through the lens of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we are going to talk about what this something more is. Thanks for reading and sharing.

A Firm Anchor

One of the saddest moments in all of film history was when Chuck lost Wilson. If that’s not ringing any bells, a bit of a reminder may be due. The Chuck I’m talking about is Chuck Noland. If that’s still not ringing any bells, that doesn’t really surprise me. His name doesn’t matter very much and in fact I couldn’t have told you what it was until I looked it up. Wilson, though, just goes by Wilson. He’s white, male, a little round, and wears a handprint on his face. Actually, the handprint is his face. You see, Wilson is a volleyball. Actually, he’s a great deal more than that to Chuck whom you may recognize now as the character played by Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. After surviving a plane crash and landing on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific, Hanks manages to survive by cobbling together what he needs from the various packages his FedEx plane dropped in the crash and which washed up on shore. One of these packages held Wilson who offered Hanks what was perhaps his most important survival tool: a relationship. I mean, Wilson didn’t actually have any lines in the film, but by giving Hanks’ character the ability to have the illusion of a relationship, it enabled him not to completely lose his sanity during his terrible sojourn. 

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 1:15-16

“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives – the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah – ‘When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the fiercest debates in our culture today is on the issue of the morality and the ensuing legality of abortion. Opinions on it run the gamut from absolutely wrong in all cases to absolutely right and even a positive good to be vigorously defended, and everywhere in between. As followers of Jesus, our position on the matter must be founded on and rooted in the Scriptures. And while there is no blanket prohibition on it, there are plenty of passages that indicate God’s clear position on the matter. We find one here right at the beginning of the story of Exodus. Let’s talk about it.

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Essential Tools

In our journey of understanding better what followers of Jesus should believe about Him and the Christian worldview, we have so far talked about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and people. This week we are turning our attention to another essential doctrine that involves getting people together in groups to advance God’s kingdom. This week we are talking about the church. Why does the church matter so much? Read on to find out more. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Essential Tools

I love fresh pineapple. I love fruit in general, but truly fresh pineapple may be one of my favorites. Pineapples, however, are not the easiest fruits to enjoy. It’s not like an apple that you can pick off the tree and go to town on. It’s not even like an orange that, though not something you can just pick up and eat, is usually ready to go after a few seconds of peeling. If you want pineapple, you’re going to need a knife. The treasure is hidden under a thick, spiky shell that is going to require a bit of work to get through to enjoy the literal fruits of your labor. 

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Broken from Birth

As we continue our journey through some of the more unsettling results from the Lifeway and Ligonier Ministry The State of Theology survey, this week we are moving on from the doctrine of God to the doctrines of people and sin. One of the more common ideas about our status before God when we start out in life is that we are all born innocent in God’s eyes. Yet as we engage with the Scriptures carefully, we are greeted with the rather disturbing news that this isn’t the case at all. In this next part of our journey we are talking about why that is and why the truth is so much better. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Broken from Birth

I don’t watch as many of them as I used to, but I used to watch a lot of food competition shows. I’ll still occasionally tune in today just to see the sheer artistic splendor of the things the various food artists create. The level of detail and intricacy to some of their creations is simply jaw dropping. There’s a new series on Netflix called, “Is It Cake?” where judges have to guess which of the items on a display in front of them are cake and which aren’t. They get fooled a lot. The fact that someone can make a cake look so convincingly like something else like a shoe or a purse or even a burger and fries that you actually can’t tell which is which is amazing to me.  

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