This week I’ve been looking into the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert in preparation for this coming Sunday’s sermon. It’s another Bible story that is so familiar it’s possible to overlook how profound it all is. This time as I have been rereading it, I have been struck by the three categories Satan’s temptations fall into. The first temptation is to turn stones into bread. When we think of temptation and sin, things that appeal to our bodily appetites are often the first to come to mind. Drinking, smoking, overeating, etc. The second temptation (at least in Luke’s…

January is a perfect time for some decluttering – closets, offices, and garages. (Well, once it gets a little warmer!) I speak from experience – I decluttered my home office a few weeks ago and it has been a much more pleasant place to spend time ever since.  Your friends at “The Minimalist” put together a list of 15 stats about Americans and our possessions and they are eye-opening.  (At least as far as you can trust stats on the internet. They certainly sound plausible.) For instance: “Americans make one impulse purchase every two days, spending up to $5400 annually…

I am not a huge fan of promoting “Read through the Bible in a Year” type challenges.  While it is an awesome thing to read the entire Bible, to frame it as a New Year’s resolution or a challenge poses some risks, both for those who fail and those who succeed. It’s risky for those who fail:  Because it calls for a significant investment of time and energy on a daily basis, the vast majority who take up the challenge drop it long before the year is over, leaving them feeling quite defeated spiritually. It’s also risky for those who…

Imagine a thick fog 20 feet deep over a square acre of ground.  If you condensed all the water in that fog into a liquid, how many one-gallon jugs would you need to contain it all? Not more than one, and only a third of it!  The reason you want to develop your own understanding of important doctrinal beliefs – and revise those beliefs as you mature in faith – is not so you can get a perfect score on God’s doctrine test. None of us can ever get a perfect score on such a test. One or two warped…

It was a great morning at Sardinia Baptist Church. I was preaching on Matthew 3 where the story of John baptizing Jesus is recounted.  It seems to me that when it comes to baptism, we need to find middle ground between those who say baptism is an absolute necessity for salvation, with no unbaptized soul allowed into heaven (like the Mormons) and those who consider baptism to be entirely optional (like a lot of folks who grow up in the church).  As I was working through the passage this week, it seemed to me that baptism is more than a…

I will be preaching on the baptism of Jesus this Sunday and it’s caused a lot of self reflection. I have been looking for a word that describes how I feel regarding my own baptism as an infant.  Resentment feels too strong, but it is appropriate in a sense – I do wish my parents had allowed me to choose my own baptism when I was ready.  Discontentment might be a better choice.  Disquiet or vexation could work as well. (Yes, I am using an online thesaurus to help me figure this out.) Misgiving? Annoyance? A little bit of all…

Saw a Facebook post from a friend today – a snippet of an old R. C. Sproul video. In it, Sproul says this of the common expression “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”:  “That’s nonsense!“ In fact, Sproul goes on to explain, far from loving sinners, God actually “abhors” every unrepentant sinner.  God abhors people!  Need proof? Sproul doesn’t point to any particular Scripture verse, but he offers this logic: if God didn’t abhor unrepentant sinners, why would he throw them into hell for eternity? If you hold to hell as eternal conscious torment, God’s hatred for His…

I spent my allotted blogging time this evening answering a question on Facebook, so I figured I would paste my comment here as tonight’s post. I was asked by an acquaintance on Facebook, “What don’t you like about Penal Substitutionary Atonement?” (For the uninitiated, PSA is the idea that God punished Jesus on the cross for our sins, pouring out His righteous wrath on the Son which we sinners rightly deserved. It is one of several theories about how the Atonement works, but I think it should be eliminated from our theology.) Here was my response: Well, first, I don’t see…

I don’t remember the last time I added a movie to my personal Top Ten list, but I was ready to bump an old favorite to make room for Everything Everywhere All At Once after watching it for the first time a week ago. (Please note that if you are offended by the use of certain words and references to crude sexual practices, this is not a movie I can recommend to you. It’s a shame – those things are involved in 1% of the run time and none are necessary to the story.) The movie has a lot going for…