In case anyone has wondered, this was my sermon series this December. This was last night’s Christmas Eve message, hence shorter than the others. Odd, if I read it straight through, it is about 10 minutes, but I managed to go nearly double that when I preached. I was shooting for 15 went about 17. […]
Everlasting Father
There is nothing in God’s creation that more fully reflects the glory of God more than mankind’s intelligence and creativity, something far beyond any other creature’s. We have been able to make advances in technology that boggle our minds, engineer skyscrapers and airplanes and spaceships, fight disease, map DNA, and solve many of this world’s […]
Mighty God
The Christmas we see in our cards, in our songs, and in our nativity sets, is a sanitized, sentimentalized, safe version of what really happened in Bethlehem. It was beautiful and glorious and powerful – Mary and Joseph yielding to God’s plan, angels announcing the Messiah’s birth, a humble setting as God takes on human […]
Wonderful Counselor
I am turning my attention away from blogging for the next few days. Here is some homiletical content for our readers to ignore! Deism became an immensely popular idea during the 1700s in Colonial America, an idea held among some of our Founding Fathers. They believed that God made the world but that he stepped […]
Brent Hobbs Sings “O Holy Night”
Brent Hobbs is a singer – many of you did not know that. Here is his rendition of the Christmas classic, “O, Holy Night.”
Unto Us a Child is Born
In the absence of other content, I thought I’d post a short series I’ve done on Isaiah 9:1-7, focusing on the four names assigned to our Savior in 9:6. Here is the overview of Isaiah 9:1-7. Joy to the world, the Lord has come Let earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him room […]
Criticism and the SBC: Part 2 – Criticizing in Love
I watched a video recently decrying the feminization of men in the modern church. The speaker valued things like aggression and even anger as masculine and admirable. A while back a blogger wrote an article challenging the “idolatry of unity” – we cherish love and unity to the point where we are afraid to condemn […]
BREAKING NEWS: SBTS Releases Report on Slavery and Racism in Its History
Dr. Albert Mohler and SBTS have just released a groundbreaking document called “Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” I gave it a quick perusal, so I am not going to offer much analysis at this time, other than to say that this kind of honest appraisal of […]
Criticism and the SBC: Part 1 – Criticizing God’s Way
We always struggle with how to criticize the SBC and its leaders. Many of them, frankly, don’t like it much and we don’t enjoy doing it. Giving criticism will always put you in the crosshairs for others’ criticism (or the silent treatment, or…). We have often found ourselves playing defense against the outrageous and inaccurate […]
STOP Complaining about Pulpit and Pen – BLOCK Them!
It happened again a couple of days ago. Shock. Outrage. Twitter lit up because the men at Pulpit and Pen said something outrageous, racist, sexist, and homophobic. Honestly, who could have seen that coming? I am not going to repeat what they said. The shameful rhetoric would even rile some who share JD Hall’s views. […]
Harvest Is Coming: Choices Have Consequences
I am thankful for the recent emphasis on Christ-centered interpretation of Scripture. It is a welcome balance to the tendency to turn Bible stories into mere moral lessons. However, while all Scripture points to Christ it does not follow that every Scripture has to be an allegory of the Cross. I am especially bothered by […]
Back on the Disabled List – One More Time
On Monday morning at 6:30 I am headed back for my third surgery this year. This one is kind of a good news/bad news thing. My first surgery cost me a gallbladder and a spleen and the second one dealt with a cancerous tumor on my kidney. This one is only designed to fix a […]