There is a term I learned from a former pastor who used it whenever he was discussing phrases or statements made by well-meaning, but biblically ignorant church folk when challenged to believe something from the Word of God that is beyond their current level of faith. The term is “Religious Escape Clause.” The most prevalent example of such… Read More »
Historically, one of the most destructive and divisive controversies within Protestantism has been between the followers of reformer John Calvin, a French theologian who lived from 1509-1564, and the adherents of Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch theologian who lived from 1560-1609. The name-calling and propagandizing against one another by these two groups has been damaging our unity of the… Read More »
Back in the fourth article in this series, I presented the 9 gifts of the Spirit as listed in 1 Corinthians 12. In subsequent articles on this topic, we have discussed 3 of those gifts, the ones commonly referred to as the “utterance gifts:” Unknown tongues Interpretation of tongues Prophesy Now, after a lengthy hiatus, we will hit the remaining… Read More »
When I taught on prayer awhile back and stated that there are models taught in the Bible on how to pray, one of those present challenged me, demanding: You mean to say we have to pray a certain way or we won’t get our prayers answered!? To which I replied: No, because that would be a legalistic recipe… Read More »
Faith, Not Sight For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7 …being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].Hebrews 11:1b AMP This refines our concept of faith even further. Faith believes God’s Word despite what we can: Perceive with our… Read More »
Faith Defined Just about every Christian theologian can agree that the following verse in the Book of Hebrews defines the concept of “faith:” Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. — Hebrews 11:1 As with almost all of my Scripture quotes, this one is from the New King James Version. Unfortunately,… Read More »
