Do I come to Jesus because I am a sinner or because he is Lord and has agape love for me? That question is central to me at this point in my life. Another way of saying this is should I cling to Jesus because of all the bad things I have done in my life or because Jesus, being Lord, has much to teach me about living and about love from this day forward. I just don’t see much point in constantly harping about what a miserable person I am. That seems to be the central theme … Continue reading A Look at Sin (Part 4). My Personal Testimony on Sin.

Ok, the last couple of posts we went through a very condensed history of God as related to sin. We stopped with Jesus telling us personally what sin is. That was I believe the last time God told us very directly just what sin is but of course he does tell us everyday in our hearts when we sin. But it was not the last time that people would try to give their own definitions. Those we will cover now. Somewhere between six and seven hundred years after Christ’s resurrection the Catholic church, which was for the most part the … Continue reading A Look at Sin (Part 3).

Let’s continue on with our journey on the history of sin. Adam and Eve had offsprings who had offsprings who had offsprings… Just how that happened I don’t care to speculate. As the population increased they kept digging their hole deeper and deeper. Finally about 1600 years went by and God just decided to kill everyone but Noah and a handful of others and start again. But it seems that man’s genes, or whatever, were polluted by Adam and Eve and Noah’s descendents pretty much went down the same road as before. God sent personal messages to them several times during this … Continue reading A look at Sin (Part 2)

Most of the Christian churches today spend quite a bit of time focusing on the fact that we are all miserable worthless sinners. But just what is sin? I will spend the next few posts on that topic. Of course the first thing that comes to mind for Christians and Jews when the topic of sin comes up is the ten commandments. These came from the Torah and the Jewish tradition. Other lists of sins have popped up from time to time throughout human history. Jesus even gave his version of the ten commandments. I will investigate these different lists … Continue reading A Look at Sin and the history of the world….. (Part 1)

        Anyone who has even skimmed the Gospels knows that one of the major themes of Jesus’ words is love. Jesus tells us it is not enough to love your friends; you must even love your enemies. Wouldn’t it be nice if only we Christians and other God believing people took those words to heart. I recently was directed by a friend to a blog post about a book about a book I have recently read entitled Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom. The blog that had the post was from The Institute on Religion and Public … Continue reading Have a Little Faith

     I don’t know how many times I have heard the words in the title of this post when it comes to the Bible. The pastor of my church even says them rather frequently. It also seems to be a major theme of some of the blogs I occasionally frequent. They seem to say that if you just read the original text it will be obvious that all the current English translations of the Bible have got it totally wrong! They typically take one word and say it does not mean xxxx but instead means something completely different. I must admit … Continue reading If you just read it in the original language…..

    Last time we studied the authors of Mark and Luke and in this post we will finish up with Matthew and John. As those who have been regular visitors to this blog know I believe that the Gospels are the absolute center of the Bible and the words of Jesus are the absolute center of the Gospels. I realize that for many of you do not choose to believe as I do. You may not see the words of Jesus as having any more significance to your daily life than any other words in Scripture. It seems that … Continue reading Authors of the Gospels – Part 2

Let’s spend a couple of posts investigating the believed authors of the four Gospels. I have to say “believed” because as with most of the Bible the authorship of the Gospels are often in dispute among various authorities. It is generally believed that Matthew and John were both part of the original twelve. Mark and Luke were not. They were much like Saint Paul in that they came along after Christ’s ascension. In this post we will discuss Mark and Luke and save Matthew and John for the next.   It is believed that Mark was the first Gospel written sometime … Continue reading Authors of the Gospels

    ——————————————————————————————————————————————————— The two groups mentioned in the title of this post are indeed on the very opposite ends of world views. But I also believe that they have much more in common than either group would like to imagine. Let’s discuss some of their commonalities.   Both groups are very rigid in their beliefs; some would say closed-minded to any other possibilities. The atheist scientist absolutely refuses to accept any notion that there is a god controlling things. They even refuse to accept that there might be some divine origin to how the universe was formed. Any mention of … Continue reading The Atheist Scientist and the Puritan Evangelical…..

It’s amazing to me the number of Christians who cling to the concept of the “Slippery Slope”. This mentality is similar to NRA not willing to even allow assault weapons or bullets known as “Cop Killers” to be banned for sale to … Continue reading The Slippery Slope

Anyone that has browsed my blog knows that I am a person full of questions.  I constantly seek new knowledge and insight. I am definitely a believer in the saying “if you are not growing you are shrinking”. In that light I am going to do a few posts about Saint Paul and his many epistles in the New Testament.  From his writings and the many books subsequently written about him we know more about Saint Paul than any of the early Christian leader including  the original twelve. I am going to be asking some questions about Paul that may … Continue reading Questions About Saint Paul……

{Postscript July 2010 – This post and all those below were imported from my old site InTheSlowLane.net} As you know I have been spending much of this holiday season scanning in photo albums from the past. It has been quite a journey so far and I have not yet gotten into all the wedding photos yet ;) . This has been a defining moment for me! I suddenly realized that I am not middle-aged anymore. We all hang on to that term as long as possible it seems. We just dread the term “seniors”.  I have previously lived in that term as I … Continue reading Middle Age??