I just finished writing a 3,000 word paper for my hermeneutics class and I am toast. But also feeling joyful.  I woke up dreading the day because I knew I was going to have to spend the majority of the given hours at my laptop, finishing this paper.  But then I worked at changing my mindset.  I remembered that there are far worse ways to spend a day than in a comfortable office in my comfortable house in the comfortable air conditioning. And I reminded myself that I would get some very pleasant breaks throughout the day – moments when…

One of the biggest problems with creating a list of proof-texts to establish your favorite theological doctrine is what doesn’t make the list. And what doesn’t make the list is every verse that could be interpreted in a way that disproves your doctrine. There is no way for your intended audience to know if there are zero such verses or if that alternate list would be ten times as long as yours.  Those opposing verses are simply invisible. (Unless your audience “does their own research”.) So as you build your total depravity proof list, for instance, you include Psalm 14:2-3…

I try to stay positive here, but this is low. The top Google result for “bible passages about total depravity” is a list of verses from a guy named Travis Carden and its best use is to illustrate why the discerning believer should put little trust in arguments based on proof-texts. For example: Under the heading of What is man’s relationship to God? The first entry reads as follows: Psalm 58:3 – The wicked are estranged from the womb. Immediately, we see that the presuppositions of Calvinism are being read into the Scriptures. How so? Well, the heading implies the…

I know Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source, but it’s late and I am just starting to investigate Original Sin, so it works for a starting place. According to Wikipedia: “The biblical bases for original sin are generally found in the following passages, the first and last of which explain why the sin is described as “original”: Genesis 3, the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; Psalm 51:5, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”; Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21, “Therefore, just as sin entered…

I wrote yesterday how my antennae now go up when I hear Bible teachers and preachers engage in proof-texting. If someone needs to hop all over the Bible and cherry pick verses, plucking them out of context, in order to establish a doctrine, there’s reason to be highly suspicious of the doctrine. Which brings me to the doctrine of “Original Sin”. I don’t have a firmly established belief about Original Sin, but I can see why it would be important to give it some thought. I’ve watched a couple of YouTube videos on the subject and I have questions: In…

About a decade ago, a friend of mine invited me to attend a Bible conference in Louisville, Kentucky for a few days and I was game – I recognized some of the names on the list of speakers and I am always up for learning more about the Bible.  The conference was called Together For The Gospel. At the time, I didn’t know much about Calvinism’s distinctives. Nor did I know that all of the speakers at this conference were Calvinists.  (Now I know that Calvinists are a tight-knit group. Hard-core Calvinists like John Piper never share a stage with…

I don’t know why, but I was asked by a friend of a friend of a friend by email what my opinion was about the use of magic in Christian literature. He writes stories with Christian messages but he does so through the use of magic as an allegory. It seems like he is looking for permission. He has my permission – if that matters. Here’s what I plan to tell him: When I was a kid, “backward masking” in pop music was a big topic in church youth groups. The idea was that secular musicians were incorporating subliminal messages…

Today is a James Brown kind of day – I feel good! (But I didn’t know that I would.) For a couple of years – maybe since we returned to Indiana from Haiti – I have been losing energy. It’s been a slow decline and I worried this might just be what the middle 50s feel like.  But I hoped it was some curable medical issue. It was getting so bad I went to a doctor about it. But all the blood tests were within normal ranges (thank God) for all things measured … with one exception: Vitamin D. So I…

It IS possible to have “too much of a good thing”. Our closets, drawers, and garages are stacked with stuff. Material possessions are a blessing but they can also weigh us down – and even dampen our spiritual lives. (Maybe even make it hard to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!) See Luke 12:15 – Then Jesus said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”  When it comes to “abundance of possessions”, Americans are more “Welcome in!” than “Watch out!” I don’t know if you’ve ever…