Vincere scis, Hannibal; victoria uti nescis In my literary travellings this weekend (you can interpret that phrase to mean “reading” – I just mean to indicate I stumbled across this phrase, not that I was spending a lot of time reading ancient history) I read an interesting phrase which immediately caught my attention. It was…
If I were to use the average church outreach program as a guide, I would have to assume that the average non-Christian is lazy, stupid, ignorant, unwilling to learn and suffering from attention deficit disorder. He has two kids that he loves but never spends any time with, leaving him racked with guilt. He is…
Revelation, inspiration and illumination are three critical concepts for Christians to understand. While most believers are at least vaguely familiar with the concepts surrounding revelation and inspiration, it seems far fewer understand illumination. We will seek to remedy that today. It is important that we keep these concepts apart in our minds. We must not…
I tend to rush. Even when I’m kicking back on the couch to read a book, I find myself rushing through the pages. It’s not that I do not enjoy reading – it just seems that I am always in a hurry to do the thing that will come immediately after what I’m doing right…
Proponents of church growth would have us believe that health and growth are always inexorably connected. They contend that a healthy church must necessarily grow and that an unhealthy church will generally not grow. Rick Warren, in The Purpose Driven Life, tells us that his book is not a church growth manual, but a church…
I am quite often asked why I would care to devote so much time and effort to the defense of a Reformed view of Christianity. A few days ago, for example, I received an email asking if it really matters what we believe on the issue of open theism. After all, either way we are…
I believe our churches need to be seeker sensitive. There, I said it! And not just a little bit seeker sensitive either. I believe they should be wholly, entirely given over to the idea of seeker sensitivity, for this is the highest calling of a church. Hear me out. Seeker sensitivity in our day seems…
If you read this site on a regular basis, you’ll know I have been doing some research on the topic of what happens to children who die before they can hear or accept the gospel. I first wrote about this here. This is an issue almost every Christian faces at some point during his pilgrimage…
In the past few days I have noticed a surge of interest in the 40 Days of Community program, the follow-up to the 40 Days of Purpose program some 20,000 churches have already participated in. The initial launch of 40 Days of Community is the Fall of this year, which would explain the increased interest…
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For…
For reasons I cannot quite ascertain (though I am hoping they are not prophetic), I have been thinking a lot lately about the issue of whether children who die in infancy are automatically ushered into heaven. In other words, what happens to children when they die? I have heard various answers to this question, and…
As Christians we believe that the Bible is the word of God. We believe it is, as it says of itself, “living and breathing, sharper than a two-edged sword.” We believe that the Bible is the greatest revelation of God – despite the incredible beauty of nature, it pales in comparison to what we find…
At the conference I attended this weekend, I heard the powerful testimony of Richard Ganz as he gave his reflections on thirty years of Jewish evangelism. Richard is Jewish, and was at one time not only a practicing Jew, but a very strictly practicing Jew. His testimony caused me to think about some verses from…
There have been several times over the past few weeks when I have been challenged on my Calvinist theology. People have not been confrontational, but I believe by-and-large have been honestly seeking answers and have asked my opinion on various matters. They generally come from an Arminian background and truly want to discover the truth…
This morning I spent an hour wandering the aisles of WalMart while I had the oil changed in my van. Here’s a shopping tip for you: you can beat the back-to-school craziness by shopping at Wal Mart at 8 AM on a Saturday morning. I very nearly had the place to myself! As I wandered…
Have you ever thought about what kind of things you take for granted? In most cases, when you come to a stop sign, you stop, then look both ways. If there is a stop sign to your right or left and a car is approaching, you go ahead and pull through the intersection. Right? You…
How many times has someone told you that they “accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior?” Have you ever asked them what it means that Jesus is their Lord? Have you ever asked them how Jesus is their Savior? What makes Him their Savior? And what does it mean that He is their personal…
Unless you’ve been hiding in dead, country churches for the past decades, you’ll know that there is a movement in the Evangelical church to be relevant to the culture around us. Obviously, there is nothing inherently wrong with being able to effectively communicate with the people in our society. Since the days of the apostles,…
I spent almost the entire duration of my education in Christian schools. From the first grade until the eleventh I attended several different Christian schools in various parts of Southern Ontario. The only exception was a year I spent in Edinburgh, Scotland where I attended first the local public high school and then the American…
Today I am honored to post an entry by Doug McHone, author of CoffeeSwirls, one of my favorite blogs. Before we discuss freedom, Let’s take a look at it’s polar opposite: This is the widely-accepted definitions of a slave. Essentially, a slave is one who has no control over their own actions or destiny. They…