Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6).
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L

The Spiritual Workouts God Intends For Us Chris

Now, I’m not saying that using Bible tracts to evangelize is totally fruitless. I’m sure there are more cases than I know where one of these has led a person to the Savior. They do contain very vital information, present the Gospel in a concise manner and they offer an easy way to share the Good News. The problem is, in most cases, people are just not interested.

They look at the cover, see it’s something that looks “religious,” and without giving it a second thought, toss it away. Some do this because they think they already know who God is, what “Christianity” is all about and believe they’re “good” with God…but they have no interest in pursuing what they perceive as “religion” or learning anything more than they think they already know.

People also have extremely short attention spans, and Bible tracts often contain a lot of information in very small type font, packed into a very small booklet. And while these same people will spend countless hours scrolling through nonsense on social media, all those words in tiny print look intimidating. People know they’d have to take time to read that “fine print,” and they’re just not interested…any more than they’re interested in political fliers or other junk mail that comes in their mailbox. //

So how do we reach the lost? The most effective way, obviously, is having a deep, meaningful one-on-one conversation with someone who’s not only willing to listen, but also engage in discussion, ask questions, be open about what you’re sharing and then, by God’s grace, develop a craving for the truth and the many revelations His Book contains…we want them to want to study God’s Word for themselves.

But situations and opportunities like this are rare. If ever you’re blessed to have such an divine appointment, don’t waste it. “…and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you…”

Still, the printed word holds great power. When presented in an appealing way, the printed word can literally change hearts, minds and lives. Unlike digital things that are constantly changing; here today and gone tomorrow, the printed word is printed, tangible and not going away.

The atmosphere of our church service was pregnant with expectation: four candles of the Advent wreath and the colored lights from the tree and wreaths lit the darkened room. My wife and I were among the tens of millions gathered on Christmas Eve to rehearse the Nativity story again. As one of the readers read aloud Luke 2:5, I was struck by the New International Version (NIV) translation: “Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.” Chronologically, the narrative had advanced some eight months from Luke 1:26-27, where it stated that Gabriel was sent to a virgin named Mary “pledged to be married to a man named Joseph.” The Greek verb mnēsteuō was translated identically in both verses.

The translation suggested to me that an unmarried Jewish couple was traveling a long distance unaccompanied by other family members. And the woman—still only pledged in marriage—was in an advanced state of pregnancy. If such a situation is still scandalous in the Middle East, how much more in first-century Judea!1 //

Returning to Joseph, he would have paid the bride price to Mary’s father at their engagement (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:27). Despite his misgivings, Joseph then obeyed the angel’s command to marry Mary (Matthew 1:20). The time of formal engagement, whether a full year or not, had passed between them. So Joseph and Mary had begun to live together except for sexual relations (Matthew 1:25). Luke’s understanding of mnēsteuō must be expanded to include both the betrothal/engagement as well as marital cohabitation. Therefore a better translation of Luke 2:5 would be: “Mary his wife who was expecting a child.” (The NKJV attempts a hybrid with “betrothed wife.”) English translations that suggest the couple was still only in the engagement stage of fiancé/fiancée must be discarded. Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem as a full husband and wife under ancient Jewish law.

I remember one day resolving to do arduous work in 2 Chronicles. Studiously plowing through the reigns of Solomon through Jehoshaphat, I came to 2 Chronicles 21:20 and laughed outright. The text reads, “Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings” (italics added). Being a wordsmith myself, I smiled at this bygone scribe relieved at this monarch’s death. Evidently Jehoram was not well liked. The editorial statement provides a light touch—comic relief, if you will—to the Chronicler’s usually routine kingship formula.

As I study and teach, I find I read the Bible ever more slowly, and as I do, I smile more and more frequently. I listen for its humor. My emotions span sorrow, understanding or joy as I empathize with the characters who cross its pages. I chuckle at many passages, even while acknowledging the sadness they may contain. Consequently, I believe it’s possible to read many verses, stories and even books through the lens of humor, indeed to see portions of the Bible as intended to be very funny. An appropriate response is laughter. I’ve come to this conclusion: Humor is a fundamental sub-theme in both testaments.

The ScriptureEarth.org website is managed by SIL Global. SIL’s service with ethnolinguistic minority communities is motivated by the belief that all people are created in the image of God, and that languages and cultures are part of the richness of God's creation.

The purpose of this site is to provide access to Scripture products for the languages of the world. Individual copyright and licensing information is indicated on each product by its contributing organization.

Christopher Rollston examines the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Gezer Calendar and other candidates for the oldest known Hebrew inscription

Using letter order in the ancient Hebrew alphabet for clues

According to the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a dividing line in human history. As such, it cannot but have implications for the Sabbath.

The Gospels are united in reporting that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. //

In addition to this, Jesus appears to his disciples on the first day of the week several times. //

In summary, when the disciples were gathered together on “the evening of that day, the first day of the week” (John 20:19), Jesus blesses that gathering with his presence and with the pronouncement of the peace that he has secured by his death and resurrection and that they enjoy through faith in him. Furthermore, he commissions them to proclaim Christ as Savior to the nations in the power of the Spirit. Thus, the presence of Christ with his people and the proclamation of the gospel to gather sinners and to edify the people of God are marks or traits of this “first day of the week.” //

Overall, understanding what the resurrection is and means for human history helps us to understand its implications for the Sabbath. The Sabbath, we have seen, is a creation ordinance. God instituted it at the creation so that human beings might remember God’s creation of the world in six days. By setting the Sabbath on the seventh day, God was showing humanity his goal for human existence—the worship of him who made all things. Later, in Deuteronomy, the Sabbath comes to take on added significance as God tells Israel that it is a day to remember how he redeemed them from bondage in Egypt.

Connected to both of these purposes, the resurrection is equally the dawn of the new creation in human history and part of the unique, once-for-all work of Christ to save sinners from among the nations.

Lawrence W. Reed

Christian charity, being voluntary and heartfelt, is utterly distinct from the compulsory, impersonal mandates of the state. //

With the reputation of central planners in the dumpster worldwide, socialists have largely moved on to a different emphasis: the welfare state. The socialism of Bernie Sanders and his young ally Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that of the benevolent, egalitarian nanny state where rich Peter is robbed to pay poor Paul. It’s characterized by lots of “free stuff” from the government—which of course isn’t free at all. It’s quite expensive both in terms of the bureaucratic brokerage fees and the demoralizing dependency it produces among its beneficiaries. Is this what Jesus had in mind?

Christianity is not about passing the buck to the government when it comes to relieving the plight of the poor.

Charlie Kirk - Are You A Christian

The miracles in the New Testament were not recorded by imbeciles, and thousands witnessed them. You are welcome to deny all of the New Testament as mythology, but you are not free to make up nonsensical pseudo-scientific explanations for phenomena when you've obviously never read the document you're critiquing and expect not to be mocked. //

Quiverfull
4 hours ago
Putting the theological arguments aside (which I/you could write books about), if you fed a bunch of fish that had died in that fashion to folks in Galilee, it would've been recorded in secular history as a mass die-off of people!

streiff Quiverfull
3 hours ago
exactly and the locals would've balked at eating dead fish floating in the surface because they would've assumed they were sick or poisoned.

Building on the case for the intelligent design of life that he developed in Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer demonstrates how discoveries in cosmology and physics coupled with those in biology help to establish the identity of the designing intelligence behind life and the universe.

Meyer argues that theism — with its affirmation of a transcendent, intelligent and active creator — best explains the evidence we have concerning biological and cosmological origins. Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about “who” might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe. In so doing, he reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind — but the existence of a personal God.

On 12 September,1983, the Rev. William Still, Gilcomston South Church, Aberdeen, universally recognized as the senior parish minister, both in years and influence, among evangelicals in the Church of Scotland, gave the following address to some fifty ministers at an In-Service course of his denomination, convened at St Andrews. The address was published in The Banner of Truth magazine in 1984, and was drawn to the attention of the men at the 2010 US Ministers’ Conference in Grantham, PA, by Craig Troxel, one of the speakers, who comments:

When I first read this article it helped to forge in my mind an all-important distinction. When it comes to the stewardship of the Gospel, there are two basic choices before the Church of Christ. Either the Church will be content to apply itself to God’s ordinary means and trust him for their extraordinary ends; or, the Church will pursue extraordinary means and content itself with ordinary ends. In his reflection of four decades of ministry William Still describes the extraordinary fruit that God brought about through one congregation’s simple devotion to God’s appointed means of grace: Word, sacrament and prayer. In a day when there are so many voices calling for the church to do ‘something more,’ here is a plea for the church to pursue ‘its own native activity’ in the power of the Spirit. One need not claim membership in the Stillite clan to feel a deep kinship with our brother and his (still) timely word. //

He says that he found, that apart from the Early Fathers and the Reformers, any such systematic teaching and preaching of the Scriptures was short-lived, and even the Puritans, who certainly covered the Scriptures in depth, used textual rather than systematic expository preaching. One is not saying that our practice has not been done by preachers throughout history and even today, but I think you will agree that it is far from the accepted form.

However, the abundant fruit of this form of ministry, which I have documented in a book called The Work of the Pastor, is such that only a lunatic would have abandoned it despite all that was said against it. //

Now, I wonder if any are saying, ‘How incredibly narrow this is as an example of congregational life! Such intense spirituality!’ Perhaps you think you could not stand it, let alone your congregation! Well, all I can say is that from that fount of praise, prayer and Bible Study every conceivable kind of outreach goes on into the wider church and the community. //

I take the opposite view, having seen the dissipation and dilution of effort by such all-inclusive activities on the part of the different denominations I have been in. I felt that my time as Pastor could best be employed by concentrating almost wholly on feeding the sheep and tending the lambs in their spiritual growth through a corporate life of prayer and the ministry of the Word. Then let the congregation go out – and encourage them to do so – with an absolutely free commission to be leaven throughout the community and to live their life out there amongst the people as the good Lord guided. //

You see, you could get crowds to come to pie suppers You see, you could get crowds to come to pie suppers and dances in the hall, but precious few to church on Sunday, until things were so bad that old J. T. Cox – the compiler of our Church Law Book, who was Presbytery Clerk back then – twice tried to close our congregation down because it could not pay its way. Serve it right, too!

I hope you see what I am saying: let the church be the church, and let it not incorporate into its fundamental constitution anything but its own native activity, and let all the rest be as much in the nature of an unofficial activity and outreach as possible. //

I was saying that in our experience the whole future of young folk attending church – to put it no higher than mere attendance, although I can put it higher – right up to early adulthood, has hung on getting them to attend regularly, preferably in the family pew, during childhood. To say that we cannot do this in our modern age is surely the most pathetic admission of failure in our elementary responsibility as Christian parents. //

But instead of arguing with people that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and presenting a wealth of apologetics, as many conservatives have spent their time doing, one has felt that the way to press people into the kingdom, especially thinking young people, is to preach the Word and teach it, and let it do its own work by the Holy Spirit in their consciences, ‘precept upon precept, line upon line’ (although I know that these phrases were perhaps first used by Isaiah for a different purpose). I mean preaching in a dogmatic way, not in the aggressive sense of the word but in the positive sense of it. And it is axiomatic and essential that we must present the truth with that backing of prayer and that dependence upon the Holy Spirit (in both the study of the Word and in the declaration of it) which releases the latent power of the Word to reach not only the minds, but the consciences, hearts and wills of the hearers. Our purpose must be nothing less than life transformation and, consequently, the calling of many into the Lord’s service. //

William Still (1911-1997) was the Minister of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland, Aberdeen, from 1945 until his death. This article was previously published in The Banner of Truth magazine, No. 244 (January 1984),

SUMMARY
The author reaches 1,800 years back into history, looking at the oldest, handwritten editions of the letters of Paul. Actual photographs of the manuscripts are included in this article.

Casting lots is not what most people think it is. It is not rolling the dice. Casting lots were actually white, smooth stones put into a cup, but there was usually one stone that was black, thus the expression today of being “black balled.” When they cast lots, each person took a stone out after they were shaken up and the one who received the black one was the guilty party. If it was disputes that were being settled, the same process was involved and the guilty party got the black stone. For decisions about priestly duties or dividing up land they would frequently have a symbol or name for the tribe or priest that was mixed together with the others, and whichever lot came out at a particular time, a decision was based upon that. There was no chance for the lot being cast for the wrong person or the wrong tribe because God is sovereign even over the lots.

Truly, “The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is the Lord’s alone” (Prov 16:33), but the most important question is, “Have you trusted in Christ?” There is no other way to heaven than through Jesus Christ (John 6:44). The path to hell is broad and wide, but there is only one, narrow path to heaven (Acts 4:12). You have to make a decision because to make no decision is to choose to reject Jesus Christ, and that will not go well for you the moment after you die, and no one knows when that will be. We all have an appointment for our death (Heb 9:27). At that moment, it will be too late to do anything about your eternal state. Like the rich man in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, you cannot cross over, nor can you go back and warn your family or friends (Luke 16:19-31). The fact is you will be there for all eternity, and when 10 billion years have passed, you will not have knocked off one second of your eternal punishment. Your eternity is been permanently cast if you reject Christ. Choose today who you will follow. Tomorrow may be too late.

Marriage is never fair deal -- you are building something eternal

Indeed, the sin of Adam is a “felix culpa” (a “happy fault”) because, through it, God — in His benevolent care for us — caused an even greater good to come from it: the incarnation, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, His resurrection, our salvation, and the redemption of the world.

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga writes in his felix culpa theodicy, “Perhaps God sees that the best worlds he can actualize are ones that include the unthinkably great good of divine incarnation and atonement. Suppose he therefore actualizes a … world that includes incarnation and atonement, and in which human beings fall into sin, evil and consequent suffering.”

In his encyclical Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II reflected upon the possibility of redemptive suffering. That is, the possibility that God can — and does — redeem our suffering for good. “One can say that with the Passion of Christ all human suffering has found itself in a new situation,” he writes. “In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.”

In other words, through Christ — and because of Christ’s sacrifice — our very suffering can also be redeemed and provided with new purpose and meaning. Moreland and Craig make a similar point, writing, “the chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God.”

“Many evils occur in life that may be utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness,” they observe, “but they may not be pointless with respect to producing a deeper knowledge of God.”

A Christian response to the problem of evil acknowledges it is possible that God permits evil and suffering because He can bring about a greater good from it. //

Only Christianity addresses the problem of evil with an entirely unique answer among the world’s religions: God Himself — in the person of Christ — came to suffer with us, for us, and because of us.

Reflecting upon this fact, Christian philosopher Marilyn Adams writes, “[God] is not content to be immutable and impassible, to watch his writhing creation with the eye of cool reason. He unites himself to a human consciousness and takes the suffering to himself.” Only in Christianity does God enter His creation, live among His creatures, and ultimately bleed and die on behalf of and at the hands of His creation. Because He loves His creation. Because He loves us.

That, indeed, is a God we can trust in.

WITNESSES
(45-80 MINUTES)
Eight men, who rubbed shoulders with Jesus, tell stories of their encounters with him.  Ranging from wildly funny to dramatically intense, these stories show a “fleshed out” Jesus, who made a curious call on these mens’ lives.  Performed in contemporary dress, with very contemporary language, this show introduces the audience, in a fresh way, to Jesus, without “church language or pews”.  In the blink of an eye, with very simple costume changes, Curt becomes eight different men, with eight different perspectives on Jesus.  //

God-Views
(40-60 minutes)
What is God really like? This show asks that question. And … it’s funny. Very funny. In it, Curt presents, in caricature form, six different comic misconceptions of the nature of God. God as a Sheriff, a Butler, an old Geezer, a Mechanic, a Cosmic Party Animal, and … God-in-a-box. He concludes with one of two stories (or sometimes both!) … a tender re-telling of the Prodigal Son story, showing the Father heart of God, or a very funny “redneck parable,” showing, in no uncertain terms, the picture of a gracious God.

Archaeologists finally broke the cipher on 255 strange symbols etched into a Canadian rock over 200 years ago — and it’s the Lord’s Prayer… in Swedish.

Discovered in 2018 after a tree fell near Wawa, Ontario (just a stone’s throw from Michigan), the bizarre runes had stumped many — until Ryan Primrose from Ontario’s archaeology squad swooped in with the scoop.

After seven years of trying to decipher what the unusual carving symbolized, Primose finally learned that the etched symbols are part of an alphabet that was used in Scandinavia.

And the symbols translated to a 1611 Swedish version of The Lord’s Prayer, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

No other fancy artifacts showed up nearby, so Primrose figured the area where this carved rock lay most likely was treated as an outdoor chapel.