Don’t Invite Jesus Into Your Life!

Growing up in a Baptist church I was always taught the importance of inviting Jesus into your life. Sin had messed up our lives, and we each needed to ask Jesus to come into our lives and save us from the mess that sin had caused. Truth be told, however, my life wasn’t all that messed up. Seriously, the...

The Dangers of Church Discipline

One of my readers, commenting on a post I wrote about grace and nonjudmentalism, wrote, “How about writing a little about the difference between forgiveness and indulgence. What does biblical discipline, rebuke and reproof look like for believers in the church?” It’s a legitimate issue. I’ve said many times...

Free to be Your Best Self

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. There are passages in the Bible that are hard to understand. We puzzle over them, read Bible commentaries, listen to Christian leaders we trust talk about them, and still we end up scratching our heads. This is...

A Perfect Brutality

My dad was pretty hard on me growing up. No matter what I did, he wanted me to do it better, especially in school. If I got a B on a test, he wanted me to get an A, and told me so. If I brought home an A, he wanted an A+. If I answered 49 out of 50 questions correctly and got an A+, he’d want to know why I...

The Serpent Didn’t Lie about Death

Humans have a natural fear of death, but that fear has caused us to miss the true lie of the serpent in Genesis 3. In the story Adam and Eve are told that they can eat of any tree in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen....

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