Pete Enns writes about what he believes is the most frightening verse in the Bible. His post is well worth reading. His verse should be frightening. He cites 1 John 4:7-8: Loved ones, let’s love one another, for love is from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. The one…
A few years ago I heard a story about a Methodist District Superintendent who was visiting a church in his district. The church was conducting an afternoon training event. At the height of this event, the superintendent asks the pastor of the church how many people he thought were in attendance. The pastor looked around…
There’s very little checking done of the accuracy of the prediction of pundits, which is a major reason I avoid even hearing what they have to say. One exception to this rule is Nate Silver and his crew at FiveThirtyEight.com. They’ve just published an analysis of as many of their predictions as possible. It’s worth…
In a previous post I discussed how I see the question of whether a doctrine or behavior is Christ-centered and whether it acknowledges Jesus as Lord can determine whether such action is right or wrong for the Christian. I also noted that I suspected my answer was going to be unsatisfying to many. The reason…
I took the opportunity to see this play last Saturday night (March 30, 2019) as part of the SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) program coordinated by PenArts. At first I didn’t intend a review, because I don’t have much business reviewing plays. My only experience was in high school. I don’t even watch movies or…
This is by Chris Eyre, chief editor since this past summer of Energion Publications. It’s in our Topical Line Drives series. Buy (Featured Image by Philip Barrington from Pixabay)
I mentioned in my post about completing the study of Romans that our next book was Leviticus. This was by choice of the group, but it is surely driven somewhat by the number of references I have made to Leviticus. While I experienced Leviticus as a child, going to a Christian school where we read—really…
A commentator noted that I was not all that helpful in my post yesterday, since I hadn’t made any effort to say just what it would mean to have Jesus as the center of a doctrine, nor what it means to call Jesus Lord. In response, I obviously had to create a new, more ambitious…
Earlier this evening I finished my Wednesday night class on the book of Romans. For the study of Romans 16, I used a sermon by Dr. Fred Craddock off of YouTube. Here it is: I have never found anything that is quite like this as a presentation on Romans 16. Dr. Fred Craddock was indeed…
I have encountered a few questions lately regarding the work of the Holy Spirit, particularly the manifestation(s) and gifts of the Holy Spirit as they may be observed in a church setting. There is always a problem with evaluating theology based on the visible actions of God, because this gets confused with identifying God’s actions….