In the past couple of years have you noticed the rise in talk about “multiverses” and “parallel universes”, both in science and in pop culture? If you are wondering where this is coming from, it is the latest attempt by secular scientists to avoid any conclusions that might point toward an all-powerful God.  Recently, science has catalogued over a hundred laws and properties at work in our universe, interacting with each other in complex ways, and they are all “fine-tuned for life”. If any one of them was even a fraction of a degree different, life would be an impossibility. For…

It is unwise to put too much weight on a first impression.  A couple we know met through the internet. Today, Paul and Jen have been happily married for years, but their relationship was almost uprooted before it could even sprout.  The culprit was Paul’s jump to a faulty conclusion at the end of their first date.  They had had a pleasant meal together, but as they walked to the restaurant’s parking lot, Jen asked Paul, “So … what kind of car do you drive?” This was a test. Jen had dated her share of shallow men who – given…

2 Timothy 4:3 – “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”  How about what their eyes want to see? Did the Apostle Paul just predict the ability of the algorithm to commandeer cognitive bias?! 😏

 In the Apostle Paul’s list of how too many people are in these last days (found in the opening verses of 2 Timothy 3), he acknowledges that humans by nature are lovers.  But our love is often disordered. Five times Paul uses a construction for men being “Lovers of” something. In Greek these new words are formed by using “phil” (love) as a prefix. According to Paul, there are 3 things that misguided people end up loving that they shouldn’t. People become: And when these things take first place in the heart, it is impossible to simultaneously become what we should…

This morning when I stretched out this list from 2 Timothy 3:1-5 of how people will be “in the last days”, it made quite an impression on me. Take a look. Paul warns Timothy: But mark this:  There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be: Have nothing to do with them. It is important to note that when Paul speaks of “the last days”, he doesn’t have in mind a handful of years or even decades immediately preceding the second coming of Christ.  The fact that he is warning Timothy – 2,000 years ago – to…

This week I got into a little YouTube comment debate with a hard-core fan of John MacArthur who didn’t like my criticism of MacArthur’s Calvinism.  My original comment was an attempt to point out how Calvinists tend to redefine the word “sovereign”: “There have been numerous earthly kings who were “sovereign”. This never meant that they determined every last thought, word, and action taking place in their kingdom.” My comment sat undisturbed for a month and a half until user “Og Make Fire! Fire Good!” came along to call me out on my wrong thinking: Og responded: “Acts 2:23. [Jesus…

Today, a lifelong friend paid me a deposit to begin working with him on writing his book.  For the past two years I have written a blog post a day – to convince myself I am a writer. Somehow today’s check was 100 times more convincing. It’s funny how that works.  (Now all I have to do is write a book…) 

When we were first called to Haiti, we sacrificed many things. One of the first was our house.  Two years before we even moved overseas, we moved out of our house in the hopes of paying down our debts before going to the mission field. By fall of 2011, we were settled in with Melissa’s mom and the house was empty. Some friends helped us get some fresh paint on the walls, and we advertised an Open House for a Sunday afternoon.  On the big day we were excited. We were right in the center of God’s will and he…

When I read in Romans 8:28 that God “works in all things to the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purposes”, I have to ask: do I believe it? I am trying to. We’ve been hit with some genuine financial concerns at a time when much of my extra effort is going toward developing writing skills and studying to earn a doctorate.  Both of these are investments in future opportunities but they don’t pay the bills right now.  But I have a deep, abiding sense that both of these efforts are part…

The Apostle Paul had much to say about false teachers. Mostly what he said was “Beware of them!” To Timothy, who had the responsibility of overseeing a local church body, Paul said – more than once – “When you find a false teacher in your midst, shut him down quickly.”  Immediate correction was important because otherwise “their teaching will spread like gangrene.” (2 Timothy 2:17a) It’s a graphic simile. Gangrene is an infection resulting in the rotting of the extremities. Fingers, toes, even an entire limb, once alive – now clinically dead.  And not coming back.  But still attached. And…