Tag: Christianity

Couple walking hand in hand on a coastal trail at sunset with ocean and hills in background

Delighting in the Goodness of Marriage

Leave a comment

“Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well. Should your springs flow in the streets, streams in the public squares? They should be for you alone and not for you to share with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth. A loving deer, a graceful doe—let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever.” (Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭15‬-‭19‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

After God made the first woman, He brought her to the first man to be his partner, his wife. And the first man, seeing her for the first time, was so excited that he broke into song. God designed marriage to be a good thing. He created it to be good for us and glorifying for Him. Today, though, it is often treated as something less than that. Yet when we get it right, it is a still a blessing. Let’s talk about some of Solomon’s wisdom for doing that.

Read the rest…
A cloaked figure stands at a signpost pointing to paths labeled Light and Dark Temptation under contrasting skies

Choosing the Right Path

Leave a comment

“So now, sons, listen to me, and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth. Keep your way far from her. Don’t go near the door of her house. Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others and your years to someone cruel; strangers will drain your resources, and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house. At the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed, and you will say, ‘How I hated discipline, and how my heart despised correction. I didn’t obey my teachers or listen closely to my instructors. I am on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community.’” (Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭7‬-‭14‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

When I was in college I read a book that profoundly shaped my understanding of sin. It’s called The Smell of Sin and the Fresh Air of Grace, by Don Everts. In the book he talked about several of the false ways that sin presents itself in order to capture our attention and devotion. One of those is that sin is enjoyable. Sin is often seductive. It is alluring. It draws us in with promises to satisfy all of our wants and desires. And as much as that is a lie of the highest order, we fall for it over and over and over again. If we buy those lines we will soon discover the trap we have fallen into. Let’s reflect on this with Solomon as he continues his warning against buying into sin’s seductions here.

Read the rest…
Open Bible with broken chains on wooden table at a rural forked path with sunset

The Fast Road to Nowhere

Leave a comment

“My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen closely to my understanding so that you may maintain discretion and your lips safeguard knowledge. Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her words are smoother than oil, in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps head straight for Sheol. She doesn’t consider the path of life; she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.” (Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭1‬-‭6‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

When Paul was warning the Corinthian church about sexual immorality, one of the things he observed to them was that sexual sins hurt ourselves. Most sin hurts other people when we do it. Sexual sin hurts us. It may hurt others too, but it definitely hurts us. Why would anyone do something they knew to be damaging to their body? It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. But unfortunately, folly in this particular area is frightfully hard to resist. We need the kind of wisdom Solomon calls us to here. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

The Good News About High Standards

Leave a comment

Last week, as we continued our summer teaching series, A Kingdom Vision, we started working through the second half of Matthew 5. We often look at these verses as a series of only loosely connected blocks of teaching from Jesus. What we came to discover, though, is that in this section Jesus is doing something really important. He is helping us see and understand that self-righteousness is not the way into God’s kingdom. That’s not how God’s kingdom works. His kingdom is a kingdom of grace. After establishing this fact, Jesus gives us six examples to prove His point. Let’s work through those today as we finish up the rest of Matthew 5 together.

The Good News About High Standards

We have been watching a series on the Angel Studios streaming service called Guarded lately. It’s a basic romantic-drama. One of the main characters is the billionaire owner of a tech company, and one of the prominent plotlines so far revolves around his relationship with his father. No matter what he does, no matter how successful he becomes, his father is only ever critical. He seems to almost delight in pointing out every flaw he has or mistake he makes. His character hasn’t said it out loud, but you can tell that he feels like no matter how hard he tries, he’s never going to be good enough for his dad. 

Read the rest…
A glowing double helix DNA strand merging into a bright spiral galaxy surrounded by stars

A World Designed for Discovery

Leave a comment

“The Lord founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding. By his knowledge the watery depths broke open, and the clouds dripped with dew.” (Proverbs 3:19-20 CSB – Read the chapter)

When Charles Darwin first proposed his ideas about human origins, our understanding of the complexities of life was pretty rudimentary. Of course, we didn’t think that at the time. The mid-19th century through the early days of the 20th century were marked by incredible confidence in human knowledge—a confidence we now recognize as a rather wild overconfidence (even as we fall into the same trap ourselves about our own knowledge). What we have come to understand since is that life is vastly more complex than Darwin could have imagined. Not only that, but the universe itself is complex almost beyond all description. To borrow the phrase that is commonly used to describe it, we live in a finely tuned world. It takes a great deal of wisdom to manage such a world. Fortunately, that’s the nature of the God we serve. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…