Introduction Several years ago, our church’s guest speaker was a former pastoral staff member, a Calvinist-Baptist minister closely aligned with John MacArthur and John Piper doctrinally. His message centered on the illness, death, burial, and raising-from-the-dead of Lazarus in Bethany recorded in John 11. His sermon remarks opened with the statement “God will disappoint us” and then continued with… Read More »
It seems the Lord is not done with me on this topic, so this is another view of “the elephant” from a slightly different perspective. As I was continuing my reading in 2 Chronicles today, I came across a passage well-known in charismatic circles, one I have lost count of the times I’ve heard taught on: After this, the… Read More »
Even casual Bible-readers can quickly detect God’s high regard for the humble. Tragically, many proclaiming themselves “Christian” these days appear to have either glossed over or mentally redacted those passages entirely. Before we get started, the great danger inherent to writing about humility is my being perceived as proclaiming the equivalent of “Humility & How I Achieved It”… Read More »
My wife and I enjoy watching period movies and TV series. Recently, we stumbled across yet another British-clergy-as-crime-fighter TV series on PBS called Grantchester. The series takes place during the 1950s and 60s in the eponymous real-life village close to Cambridge University. Its protagonists are an Anglican parish vicar and a hardened police inspector who develop an unlikely… Read More »
After publishing my previous article, I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to write an analysis of Jake’s assertions using the principles I listed and discussed in my series on Critical Thinking. In obedience, we will now examine that encounter in greater depth so you can take that knowledge into any future discussions with Christianity’s ideological opponents. All… Read More »
So far in this series, we’ve explored the concepts of critical thinking and a hindrance to it, cognitive biases. In this article, we will discuss a second hindrance: “logical fallacies.” What is a Logical Fallacy? Again, let’s define some terms: logic reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity fallacy a mistaken belief, especially one based… Read More »
In the previous article in this series, we defined and discussed the term “critical thinking” and why we Christ-followers should care about it. In this installment, we’ll discuss the topic of biased thinking. Bias is easy to grasp because we’ve all encountered them in others, especially those of us who are not Caucasian, though we all tend to… Read More »
Introduction We Christ-followers are constantly bombarded by hostile narratives. They are proclaimed by those trying to sway public opinion in support of their theological and/or political ideologies. Their positions are often presented with a total disregard for rational thought and/or reality and/or biblical morality. Regardless of how altruistically their agendas are portrayed, the consistent sticking point is frequently:… Read More »
