Here is an interesting little article from scientist and Christian apologist on why different Hebrew words are used for birds and sea creatures as opposed to land animals. From Reasons to Believe……………..
Here is a very timely article from Christian financial advisor C.J. Cagle. From Retirement Stewardship……………………
Of the Third Part of Prayer, which is Petition and Supplication for the Good Things that I Stand in Need of.
In this article, we are reminded that God’s work of creating things of great beauty and long-lasting quality often involves great heat and pressure! And not just for rock formations………..From Gentle Reformation……………………
Many progressive Christians and atheists try to argue that the Bible is full of contradictions, thus not to be trusted or very open to new interpretations. Author Frank Viola takes exception to this this. Here is a takeaway: “There are many so-called ‘contradictions’ in the Bible that people claim which really aren’t. Those ‘contradictions’ can be easily resolved if one exaamines the context, the original languages, the different ancient manuscripts, and the particular perspective of the biblical author. When one reads Scripture carefully, they will find that there are very few real contradictions in the Bible. The rest can be explained by varying perspectives or spiritual paradoxes.” From The Deeper Journey……………….
One of the main reasons for this blog is to point people to encouraging and helpful biblical blogs and websites. As such, this article is a little different because it points out a fantastic website called ThirdMill.org. This site provides FREE seminary-level courses from top evangelical scholars and seminaries. The following article is really the first lesson in a series called, “Kingdom, Covenants and Canon of the Old Testament, ” hosted by Dr. Richard Pratt, Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, Editor of the NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible and a translator for the New Living Translation……………………
https://thirdmill.org/seminary/lesson.asp/vid/38/version//ft/m
I enjoy reading these little articles from Crosswalk. This one focuses on the image of shelter we can find in the Bible. Here is a takeaway for me: “When our journeys are difficult and our bodies remind us that this earth is not our permanent home, God does not leave us without help. He is always available to be a shelter for us to offer protection and grace.”
How do you become a really good person? You place your confidence in Jesus Christ and become his student or apprentice in kingdom living. That amounts to progressively entering into the abundance of life he brings to us. You learn from him how to live in the kingdom of God as he himself did. There is much to learn after you enter. To go through the door is not necessarily to live in the house. Our confidence that Jesus is “the One” leads us to go constantly to school with him, taking our whole life with us, and it is in so doing that love comes to pervade our life to such an extent that we are unmistakably his students. He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). He can impose this challenge upon himself as teacher because he knows no one else can produce the human transformation he has in mind
From Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. Copyright © 2009 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
| How is one to know about God?The question that lingers in the air within our communities and world at large is: How is one to know about God? This is why the proclamation of the gospel as the knowledge of God is absolutely fundamental, essential, and unequivocally necessary for the common well-being. The preaching and teaching of the Logos of God is to reveal the nature of God and his ways. Very simply, this is what the gospel consists of. The gospel is the good, true, and real news about God. In order for us to understand the entire gospel, we must also understand it in the fullness of God. Therefore reducing the gospel to certain doctrines pertaining to things like salvation, justification, atonement, or social/political activism, as important as these are, risks overlooking that these are subsidiary to the fullness of the nature and essence of God’s person. If we merely think of the gospel as the work of Jesus during a few moments on a cross during his earthly existence, we will miss the grand entirety of his mission on earth. Most crucially, we will miss the essence of God as he is in himself, including his Trinitarian relationality, and the ways in which he provides for all of those who are created by him. This is what Paul is attempting to bring across in Ephesians 4:17–24: “Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” From The Divine Conspiracy Continued: Fulfilling God’s Kingdom on Earth. Copyright © 2014 by Dallas Willard amd Gary Black Jr. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. |
Hey!…This article is talking about me! Here is a takeaway to whet your appetite for more: “Though they walk in a world where birds feast and flowers dress like kings, they find themselves easily troubled by their own needs. Does God see them? Does God hear their cries? Is God really their Father? Their heads may nod, but their hearts hesitate. Alongside the worry they wear on their sleeve rests this badge: ‘O you of little faith.'” From Desiring God…………….
